A very special 25th Anniversary re-issue of the pioneering self-titled debut album by Norway’s avant-garde Black Metal innovators BORKNAGAR is out worldwide today via the band’s longtime label partner Century Media Records.
Check out a visualizer clip for the track “Dauden (Remaster 2021)” created by Wanderley Perna / W Designer to get an impression of Borknagar (25th Anniversary Re-issue 2021) below.
BORKNAGAR founder and mastermind Øystein G. Brun commented about “Dauden” as follows: “ If there is one song that has shaped my sound and inspired my career as a musician that is ‘Dauden.’ Even though this was not the first song written for the debut, “Dauden” was the first song I carved out on my, then newly bought, Fostex multitrack recorder. This opened a new world to me, to be able to sit in solitude and work out layers of guitar arrangements without the typical fuzz and chaos of a rehearsal room. I still remember the grandiose feeling of musical excitement when the mid-section of this song fell into place. A notion that music can derive from “nothing” to become an entity bigger than life. This exact notion has kept my flame burning throughout all these years. Furthermore, when first talking with Kristoffer ‘Garm’ Rygg about him doing the vocals and joining the band, ‘Dauden’ was the song we were talking about, this was the musical trigger so to speak. He was seriously into this song. And I can clearly remember as if it was yesterday, Garm dancing around in studio in awe doing choirs. There was something magical about this one…And still is!”
Initially released in 1996, Borknagar saw Øystein G. Brun recruiting a phenomenal cast of like-minded musicians, such as Garm (ULVER, ex-ARCTURUS) doing the vocals, drummer Grim (ex-IMMORTAL, GORGOROTH and ANCIENT), Ivar Bjørnson (ENSLAVED) on keyboards and bassist Infernus (Gorgoroth), to enter the notorious halls of Grieghallen Studios with the goal of rupturing the peripheries of what was then deemed “traditional” Black Metal.
