Last year, in March 2022, WATAIN released their single "We Remain" , a remarkable, immersive song which features Farida Lemouchi and Gottfrid Åhman.
This particular collaboration immediately brought back any sort of memories regarding the time when WATAIN's '"The Wild Hunt" and In Solitude's "Sister" were released just about one month away from each other ("The Wild Hunt" was released on August 19th, 2013 and "Sister" on September 29th, 2013).
Shortly after celebrating the release of WATAIN's album together in Uppsala along with their brothers in Degial, the two bands toured together (also with Tribulation) during October and early November 2013 in North America.
In Solitude & WATAIN on tour together in the United States, photo courtesy of PSL / SVT._____________
To someone who approached these albums in a detached way, they mostly sounded like two works which, sure, displayed some previously unexplored musical sides of both bands and that brought both of them venturing in uncharted territories.But to someone who paid attention, albeit of course from the outside, but with an understanding intention, to what was going on between the musicians involved and to what they shared publicly about the underlying circumstances behind the creation of these two albums, it was apparent that the outcomes couldn't have been any less exceptional, and that the singularities contained in both works are intertwined in such a manner that without taking into account the shared gestation of these records, it is not possible to fully appreciate how deep these peculiarities run and how much they are mutually influenced.
In this article we will try to highlight this profound connection between "Sister" and "The Wild Hunt" through the words of their respective authors, tracing back some of these references in interviews, and mentally travelling to the time when these two memorable masterpieces were unleashed into this world.
In many occasions, musicians from both bands have been pointing out how these two albums have taken form almost in parallel, and somehow also shaped each other in a subtle way, with the strong personal bond between WATAIN and In Solitude's members having indeed a relevant impact on the songwriting itself: it was evident that their mutual influence and shared creativity reflected also in the musical result and in the peculiarity these two albums represent on both bands' discography.
Back at the time, in an interview on Decibel Magazine, Erik Danielsson made this very clear saying that "There are many reasons, I'm sure, why both of those albums came to include certain - on the surface at least- drastic changes in musical direction. I think the last three years for both WATAIN and In Solitude would be equal to 100 years in the world of man. It was clear from the beginning that this would affect the work with both albums".
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| Brothers in music on tour together, 2013 - From left to right: H.Death, Pelle Forsberg, Pelle Åhman, Erik Danielsson. Photo courtesy of Dennis Dread |
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In an interview on Decibel Magazine in 2013, Pelle (Åhman) discussed sharing the path with WATAIN during the creation of "Sister" and "The Wild Hunt":"There was definitely a mixing of energy there. It became very natural that we were in the same room or at the same place together almost constantly, just talking about where we were emotionally before doing this. I think everybody was in the same place as people in preparation for this. As things moved on, we just had a lot of things in common when it came to our comprehension and our motives of where we were going. And I think we triggered each other in that, too.[…]"
Gottfrid, on the same interview, also added in fact that "It's weird that the albums aren't more alike. WATAIN and In Solitude have been talking about the same stuff for a long time, and I think the two albums show different sides of what we've experienced together. [...]"
Later that year, in an interview on the website Dead Rhetoric, Pelle further discussed the times when they were creating "Sister" and WATAIN were creating "The Wild Hunt", explaining that "We were around each other quite a bit for much of that time. We didn’t hear each other’s records that much, being on separate ends of the same place, but meeting around the fire every night and talking about what we were seeing and experiencing. But it was really interesting. I’ll always think of The Wild Hunt and this one ('Sister') together in the future."
Homaging this time and the path they have been sharing, In Solitude's album features a guest appearance by Pelle Forsberg on "Inmost Nigredo" and WATAIN released a TAIWAZ cover, "Play With The Devil", as a B-side to their single "All That May Bleed", featuring a guest appearance by Gottfrid Åhman.
"[...]Pelle (Forsberg) is really a relentless sort of person, and that riff almost reminded us of him or something. I thought that he was really good at playing that sort of guitar, even better than us I guess (laughs). We thought that… and he meant a lot to us during the writing process. He’s a good friend of ours, so it felt very natural to bring him in to do something like that. He did a great job; I think he plays it like someone from a mental hospital, or something (laughs). You can really hear that; his personality really comes through in that guitar part.” - {Pelle Åhman about Pelle Forsberg’s part on In Solitude's ‘Inmost Nigredo’, interview on Metal Forces}
Further elaborating on his own personal experience of "The Wild Hunt" then, Pelle (Åhman) recalled in an interview on Against Magazine in 2013 that ”[…]Their album means a lot to me. I remember hearing it for the first time on a hill that lies next to this old observatory where we often sit at night. And I remember staring down at the small garden of apple trees and bushes below us, having this extremely intense notion of everything being covered in scoria. It was a beautiful thing.”
Erik of course was no less eloquent about "Sister", and right before its release, described it to Decibel Magazine saying that "the new In Solitude record is a direct translation of emotions that only one who has traveled quite deep into the chasm of the dark will be able to express. It is filled to the brim with desperation, evil, oppression, guilt and sorrow. And for such albums, the people should gather in awe, sit down to sew shut each other's mouths, as the world turns silent around them and a sun goes up in the night."
Speaking of the tour they were about to embark on together in October 2013, in an interview on Loudwire, Gottfrid also explained that "We are very like-minded people who are using rock to explore life and death and everything in between and we have found a good way doing that together as well I think. Every trip we've done together have been a true adventure and very enlightening, this tour won't be an exception. We learn a lot from each other."
From left to right: Erik Danielsson, Alvaro Lillo Sepulveda, Gottfrid Åhman and Pelle Forsberg rehearsing together in Baltimore, November 2013. Photo courtesy of Tom Bejgrowicz for Man Alive Creative - @manalivecreative_____________
Some years later (2017), in an interview on Radio metal, Erik also recalled:"We were surrounded by bands at the time that were doing something quite different—it must have been around the time when we were touring with for example The Devil’s Blood and In Solitude. Those two bands, along with WATAIN at that time of ‘The Wild Hunt’, were all very fearless in their expression; it was music that was very, very genuine and relevant. [...] We still are very much in contact with everyone involved in those bands, both dead and alive; we still cherish that bond of course. For us, it’s like these bands still exist in a parallel world, somehow.“
Needless to say, we share the same exact feeling towards these two fantastic bands: the impact their music still has on the life of many of us listeners, clearly proves that neither of them has ever really gone "inactive".
Flash forward to 2022 and to WATAIN 's brilliant song "We Remain", featuring Farida Lemouchi and Gottfrid Åhman, Erik comments in an interview on Arrows of Metal:
" We did a lot of things together, not only as bands but as friends and we were in deep discussions about the important things in life and we simply developed a very strong bond. So when it was time to record this song now for this album, it felt so great to be able to reach out to them, because they are still very close friends of ours. It felt so great to be able to reach out and invite them into the studio and record their parts. It is a collaboration I am very, very happy with and something that has a deep meaning to me, that we kind of established this connection between us three into eternity with this song."
Promotional image of WATAIN's official video for "We Remain"_____________
Indeed, this outstanding song is also a testimony to the fact that this bond continues, not only among the members of WATAIN, In Solitude and The Devil's Blood, but also between the two albums which took form as a result of that mutual inspiration; two albums which are surely impressive on their own, but even more striking if considered as two different angles of the same experiential place - a place where this bond has been sealed forever._____________
See also:-All posts tagged with 'Svandammshallarna' on Unearthed Mirrors
- 'Sister' on Bandcamp
- 'The Wild Hunt' on YouTube
- 'We Remain' official video
- Decibel Magazine #109 (Nov. 2013)