DANHEIM has released the single “Urblod” through Season of Mist, with a YouTube video supplied alongside the announcement. Copenhagen-based producer Reidar Schæfer Olsen describes the 3:20 track as a chant directed toward the oldest beings in Norse mythology. It follows Heimferd, DANHEIM’s first album for the label.
“I wanted this track to feel like a chant reaching back beyond the gods, toward the oldest beings in Norse mythology”, Olsen says. “The Jötnar are not simply monsters or enemies of the gods: they represent something much older -primordial forces, and the untamed world from which everything else emerges.”
The announcement describes “Urblod” as a ritualistic chant dedicated to the Jötnar and other primordial beings, drawing on Ymir, Bergelmir, Þrúðgelmir, Bölþorn, Bestla and Hræsvelgr. Its subject is the world before and beyond the gods’ ordered realm, with creation, ancestry and wilderness among its themes. Percussion, chant and ambient texture provide the musical framework for that focus on Norse cosmology.
Season of Mist places the single’s explicit mythological storytelling in continuity with DANHEIM’s earlier work. Olsen’s Nordic folk and ambient project draws from Norse mythology, old Danish folklore and stories associated with the darker side of the Viking period. Olsen is credited as the project’s musician, songwriter, producer and singer.
Heimferd is available now through Season of Mist in digital download, CD digisleeve, black 12-inch vinyl and crystal-clear 12-inch vinyl editions. A Glide Magazine quotation reproduced in the announcement describes its subject: “Olsen explores the idea of a homeward journey and the different expressions it might take in our lives, from struggle to something hoped for on the horizon”.
Olsen began focusing on music in the early 2000s, with a background that includes electronic and ambient composition, radio work and the founding of independent label Fimbul Records. The supplied biography connects his interest in Nordic folk and Viking-inspired music to his Danish roots and heritage.
According to Season of Mist’s announcement, DANHEIM reached one billion streams across platforms in 2022, and its music has appeared in multiple seasons of Vikings. The release also reports 585,000 YouTube subscribers. “Urblod” returns that established project to the primordial figures at the center of Olsen’s latest statement.
