I somehow keep forgetting the most seminal Nordic "dark" prog band of all time, the inimitable Thule from Honningsvåg, close to the North Cape and the Arctic Plateau. They are a legendary cult band in Norway; surprisingly many up-and-going folks of my generation (born 1971) know about them, and particularly amongst musicians. Honningsvåg was originally just a tiny fishing village; extremely isolated and practically locked-off from everyone and everywhere. The place would traditionally and typically only accomodate folks into either the fishing industry, leisure servants (cafés and pubs, of which I believe there are three or four in all of town), daydrifters or the arts; many Thule lyrics deal with the existential challenge of coping with apparent nothingness up there.
Natt ("Night") was their second album (1989) and their absolute crowning achievement, merging Pink Floyd, Peter Hammill, post-punk (or "nyrock" in Norwegian) and faint folk tendencies sporting incredibly haunting lyrical images in their own Arctic dialect ('Finnmarsking'). The album as such is an allegory of social and psychological futility in trying to escape the "contextual" parameter of fate, breathtakingly corresponding with the collapse of the Eastern bloc's initial ideals of commonship and tribal grace. The finishing track, "Vinterbarn" ("Winter's Child") is one of the most visionary melancholy songs ever produced by a Northern rock band., but the whole album is indispensible for not only 'prog history' buffs but the seekers of spiritual shade.
Bookmarks