I'm fucking excited, hearing unreleased stuff from 2 of black metal's finest. Especially that it came so unexpected. Can't wait.

Sounds like a money grab done without either band's authorization.

Also,

Ildjarn? Really?

One of the finest, yes.

The announcement of this record is indeed surprising - especially for Ildjarn, when one considers the tombstone that "Ildjarn is Dead" was allegedly intended to be -, but I see no direct reason to believe it is going to be a bootleg. Although a direct statement from Vidar Våer might not be easy to come by, I believe we'd receive notice at least from Roman Saenko soon enough if the release was, in fact, unofficial, seeing as this record will be released by Osmose, not some microscopic underground bootlegging label.

I just hope it'll be more than roughly ten minutes worth of material by both bands.

I wonder if we'll get to hear the original versions before remastering? If the release is short It could be interesting if they included both versions.

Very excited to hear the Ildjarn material for this. I guess it'll expose me to Hate Forest as well.

Check out Purity, as an Ildjarn fan you should like that. (not that it's Ildjarn worship/clone by any means)

Totally unexpected, indeed! I will be checking this out and I'm pretty sure it's not a bootleg, it's Osmose we're talking about here!

Hopefully this Ildjarn will include some ambient since he does that better than he does black metal, especially with Nidhogg.

No, no, no. While I love Ildjarn's synthesizer work (and, especially, the "Hardangervidda" albums), it cannot be separated from its black metal counterpart: they are, essentially, two forms of expression of the same meaning which rely on each other to fully blossom; they can, in my opinion, only be fully comprehended when they are viewed as two sides of the same coin. Intrinsically, both Ildjarn's synthesizer and black metal music are highly similar to each other in terms of structure and texture, how the melodies progress and so on (to illustrate, listen to "Blissful Mountain View" from the first "Hardangervidda" album and then compare it to "Whispering Breeze" from "Forest Poetry"). Ildjarn has created some of the most pure black metal there is - which also is a statement of its quality -, there's simply no sense in denying this.

By the way, the original reason for this post was to clear this release of all accusations of being a bootleg, I'll just copy a (very short) statement by Mikko Aspa of Northern Heritage a user on another forum posted to this effect:

Well, I would think at least Hate Forest's involvement would be official, since Osmose has reissued a bunch of their music. I'm kind of interested to see how their half turns out, because I prefer Hate Forest's earlier work to their later stuff. I'm worried that it will be throwaway material, but I'll keep an eye out for it anyway.

The ambient song was good, the black metal one was nothing special. My opinion remains unchanged. There is much better black metal out there.

I didn't intend to change your opinion and wasn't eager to see if "Blissful Mountain View" entertained you more than "Whispering Breeze", for that matter. I was (and still am) concerned with the acknowledgement of the intrinsic sameness and conjointness of both Ildjarn's ambient and black metal styles (not with turning anyone into an Ildjarn fan). Conceptually, it is absolutely preposterous to state that one is inferior to the other because, essentially, they are each other's likeness. Of course, one's guitar- and drum-based and heavily distorted, the other's synthesizer-based, thus, both differ in the way the musical ideas are executed instrumentally, but at the music's base, these are purely superficial differences: Ildjarn's ambient and black metal work are like twin-brothers; it becomes obvious when one, e. g. - as I mentioned before -, pays close attention to the way the melodies are constructed. The ambiance may appear to radically differ within both styles when, in fact, both are simply instrumental variations of the primary subject of the music: Ildjarn's black metal strikes the listener as abrasive, as bleak - but it is, actually and basically, as serene and calm in its effort to create a vision of "a natural world that man has never roamed" as the ambient work is.

Excuse my irascibility. I'll freely admit that I'm a rabid Ildjarn fanboy.

Listening to Forest Poetry with 103 degree fever and ripping headache changed my life.

Yes, well, a lot of Ildjarn's work has migraine-curing qualities, but I've never gave it a try during high fever, although the prospects sound enjoyable.

In other news, Season of Mist have announced the forthcoming release of all Ildjarn material in digital and physical format (take note, however, that several physical editions will be handled by other, as of yet undisclosed, labels):



A welcome opportunity to finally attain a physical copy of "Landscapes" and a non-bootleg one of "Svartfråd".

...People actually like ildjarn's ambient stuff? I mean, his BM stuff is pretty cool and sokt vokter was awesome, but.. really? People actually Landscapes? It makes burzum's ambient sound busy/interesting/well composed; definitely some of the worst attempts at "soundscapes" I've ever heard. The raw BM fan is by no means a discerning one, I guess.

I agree about Landscapes, but Hardangervidda definitely can be enjoyable. It's not extremely simplistic and the keyboard sound is not annoying.

Ladnscapes is the only Ildjarn release I just can't get completely into no matter how hard I try. Even in small doses it's so abstract and structureless that it simply loses me after a while. Hardangervidda is completely different. And completely awesome, I might add.

Good news. I'm not much into Hate Forest but I'm eager to hear Ildjarn's material.

Surprising it isn't a bootleg, I never thought Vidar would approve the release of more of his songs after he finished with his band

Sorry to bring an old topic up, but I like some Ildjarn, I really do. There's this ferocity and bestiality in his output that is rarely found in other bands' music. Would like to own the lyrics to Forest Poetry, I bet those could be quite interesting. But in some interview Vidar said, that he burnt them in a "necro" state of mind. What a loss.

I'm mostly into his more easily accesible albums like Ildjarn-Nidhogg and Sort Vokter though. Don't really know what to think about this particular release. I guess I don't need it. To be honest I've had Ildjarn is Dead 2LP for years but never listened to it. There's so much stuff on it, and I guess it's propably just typical Ildjarn demo noise in the vein of Forest Poetry. Ildjarn is not really an artist you can show to your friends and say "this rocks". The "epitaph" on Ildjarn is Dead was quite interesting though, stuff about fucking vegan girls and shit.

Sounds very interesting, Ildjarn is a very unique artist in the black metal world, and the fact that Season of Mist is reproducing the entire back catalogue makes me pretty joyful

So, is there a release date yet?

Associating Ildjarn with Hate Forest on a split CD is nonsense. What do both bands share in common, except the music genre and the fact they're one-man-bands?