New double single from folk prog rockers Lumsk upcoming album revealed.

“Fremmede Toner” from Norwegian Folk Prog Rockers LUMSK is a long way from being your average album because all its twelve tracks are actually in pairs, with each individual pair taking as their base one poem and revisiting it in two different, yet beguilingly similar, ways.

It therefore follows that when revealing a new single from the album, there must be two tracks, as is the case with “Avskjed” and “Abschied” which can be streamed or downloaded from a variety of sources at:

link.darkessencerecords.no/Lumsk_Avskjed_Abschied

As the band explained

Avskjed / Abschied is the second pair of songs (singles) taken from our upcoming album “Fremmede Toner”. This time the lyrics are the re-creation of the famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche´s “Abschied” by Norwegian author Andre Bjerke, as well as the poem in its original form.  Just as Bjerke´s poems are translations and recreations and are quite familiar but not the same as the original, the songs also try to reflect each other in the same way. They will feel familiar but will still not be the same.

“Fremmede Toner” is the fourth full-length release from LUMSK, a band that was formed in 1999, just when the metal scene was exploring the use of regional folk traditions within music. With their use of heavy guitars, keyboard and organs, violins, session horns and female vocals, and a clear vision of the direction they wanted their music to take, LUMSK was in the right place at the right time. 

Having garnered a considerable fan base and a stellar reputation, both at home and internationally, LUMSK released their third full-length album and promptly took a hiatus that was to last sixteen years.

Now, with their new album set for release on the 5th of May on Dark Essence Records, LUMSK’s seven-piece lineup includes Mari Klingen on Vocals, Siv Lena Laugtug Sæther on Violin, Eystein Garberg on Guitar, Roar Grindheim on Guitar, Espen Warankov Godø on Keyboards, Espen Hammer on Bass, and Vidar Berg on Drums.

Mixed by Rhys Marsh at Autumnsongs Recordings, and Mastered by Arnstein Fossvik at AudioMaster, “Fremmede Toner” is LUMSK’s most varied and intriguing work to date, demonstrating how the band’s unique blend of metal and Nordic folk music melds together with rich textures and clever arrangements. 

Track listing is as follows:

1. Det Døde Barn
2. En Harmoni
3. Avskjed
4. Under Linden
5. Fiolen
6. Dagen er Endt
7. Das Tode Kind
8. A Match
9. Abschied
10. Under der Linden
11. Das Veilchen
12. The Day is Done
    

“Fremmede Toner” will be available in CD, Limited Edition Double LP in Gold and Turquoise vinyl and Digital formats, and can now be pre-order from the following: 

BandCamp:  lumsk.bandcamp.com/album/fremmede-toner
Webshop:  darkessencerecords.no/kar215-lumsk-fremmede-toner/
US Webshop:  darkessence.indiemerch.com/

Featuring works by some of the most famous European and North American poets, such as Nietzsche, Goethe, Swinburne etc., the album cover, by Per Spjøtvold, someone with whom the band has worked since the beginning, also reflects the “dual” concept of “Fremmede Toner”. A concept that the band recently described:     

We stumbled upon “Fremmde Toner”, a collection of poems the by Norwegian Author André Bjerke in which he had translated and re-created poems from different English and German speaking poets, and we realised that not only did we want to write music for the Norwegian poems, but also to write music for the original poems themselves. The idea of the concept was not to create the same songs twice, but to make the songs mirror each other in a way, trying to somehow recreate the idea of a translation or re-creation. Thus, as with the poems themselves, the songs are not the same, but are, nevertheless familiar.

More information about LUMSK can be found on the band’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lumskmusic