VEN/FRI 18/05/2018 – 20H00 | 9€
Weyrd Son Records presents:
Of The Wand And The Moon + The Dark Red Seed
20H00: doors
20H30: The Dark Red Seed
21H30: Of The Wand And The Moon
23H00: Dj set
Of The Wand & The Moon: Official
Of the Wand & the Moon are one of the big guns of contemporary neofolk. Arriving a generation after founders like Death in June, Sol Invictus, and Current 93, Of the Wand & the Moon have breathed new life into this beautiful and perennially misunderstood genre. OTWATM’s 2011 The Lone Descent LP is widely regarded as a neofolk masterpiece.
Of The Wand & The Moon is the creative live and recorded music works of Danish musician Kim Larsen (not to be confused with the Danish folk singer by the same name) and various guest contributors. After irreconcilable differences with his previous musical project, Saturnus, Larsen began writing music of a different vein, similar in style to his neofolk influences but very different than the doom metal he had previously created.
Characterized by folk songs with themes ranging from expressions of love, loss, joy and ancestral Germanic paganism, Of the Wand & the Moon is best described as experimental, dark ambient neofolk. When their debut album “Nighttime Nightrhymes” came out in 1999 it marked a new entry for Denmark in a new wave of Germanic post-industrial folk projects, alongside contemporaries such as Forseti and Sonne Hagal.
The Dark Red Seed
The Dark Red Seed is the musical outlet of Tosten Larson, guitarist for Seattle dark folk musician King Dude. A self-coined ‘metaphor for the heart’, The Dark Red Seed represents a direct reference to life – and death – itself. The duo, which also includes King Dude engineer Shawn Flemming, is now about to release its debut EP, “The Dark Red Seed Stands with Death”.
Described as ‘a study of death’, “The Dark Red Seed Stands with Death” is a dark, dusty discourse on the departure and ultimate dissolution of life; a powerful expression of absolute loss shaped through Larson’s haunting, Cash-like delivery. Each of the EP’s three songs represents various aspects of death (the death of America, death of culture and death of reality through technology and globalization), drawing on deep feelings and unanswered questions to create living, breathing sound.
“I know when death comes for me I will most likely run away with blind fear,” Larson says. “I’m sure when death comes, I will almost certainly cling to life until my dying breath and pray to someone else’s god for salvation. But in life, I try to approach death as the ultimate acceptance. Whatever death and a possible life thereafter means to each individual, death is the only place where we might find answers. For in life there are only questions. Death is the one thing that awaits us all.”
Raised in Kalispell, Montana and currently based in Portland, Oregon, Tosten Larson began his classical instruction as a young boy sitting at his grandmother’s piano. Firmly rooted in thetraditions of American music, Larson’s sound is equally shaped by art rock such as Swans and Six Organs of Admittance, Eastern masters like Kayan Kalhor and Ravi Shankar, and hard rock staples such as Led Zeppelin and Neil Young. Though he wears his influences on his sleeve, his music attempts to defy category and carve its own path.
The Dark Red Seed’s first full-length album, “Becomes Awake”, is already in the pipeline and tentatively scheduled for a summer 2018 release. The record is described as a detailed concept album that can be thought of as an answer or sequel to “Stands with Death”.