Hail Kindred and affiliates,
Life has its ups and downs, and we all process these directions differently. One of the ways I deal with stress, anxiety, nerves, and pressure is expression through artistic forms. I will often draw, paint, play guitar or carve figurines out of wood. Music has been a calling of mine since I started teaching myself guitar five years ago. Since I have learned how to use musical instruments, I got into mixing and mastering hobbies and started to record and process my own music. There’s nothing more satisfying than having the right song for the perfect moment and by creating your own music you can do that at will. I often take inspiration from those around me, life, experience, and what others may be going through. I take all this emotion and put it in in form of song, melodies, harmonies, and notes. I have placed my hand in many genres of music, but making my own pagan or tribal music has been something that I truly enjoy. Finding my own sound and using my own gear and instruments makes me feel like I can create a world outside of this one when we get lost in song.
I released Golden Hammer back in November of 2022, I had 4 months of preparation for that album and wrote some moving music in that album. To this day there is something about watching the moon while listening to Chasing the Sky, which I wrote on the Golden Hammer Album. The past 8 months have taken me and those around me down some paths I never thought I would experience. From life, to death, personal and professional experiences have touched my spirit and has written its runes upon me. This is where the inspiration to write this new album came from.
Tribal Spirit is heavily influenced by my experiences with those around me along with my own meditations with my spirituality. In my culture we all have Norns, dis, and Fylgja, but as a tribe there is always a greater protector or spiritual awareness that grows with the aging of the tribe’s existence, this is Tribal Spirit. As I did with the Golden Hammer album, I am going to walk you through each song and display its environment and how it went from an idea to a professional release in the music industry.
1. Flute Walker -
Flute Walker is influenced by my friend Brendon Donegan. He has such an outlook on adventure and exploration that it really is fascinating to see within his eyes. To hear him talk about packing up and heading into the woods inspired me to take a little of my own experience with nature and reform it into a theme that displayed his heart in a flute melody. Like the piper leading the children, a bone flute melody I created guided me to walk into the woods and not come back. The lyric in this song is clearly nothing special, but I did want to implement words of distance, adventure, and the way of this life…. life of travel. The song picks up in a marching beat where the envision of leaving it all behind to become one with life and the nature around it is truly a vision I have seen before myself, and often when I look into Brendon’s eyes, I can see that part of myself with him. This song would be best with friends, singing along, possibly a song you’d play hiking in the woods, or even taking in scenery.
2. Hear me Thor –
This song is heavily influenced by my experience with witnessing a nasty storm one day after work. Hearing the tornado sirens going off in the distance, I was in my back yard and couldn’t help but wanting to see the thunder and lightning that was taking place. Thor is always known for his power and warrior like personality, however on this afternoon watching the clouds mix and form new shapes called to me, and it reminded me of the emotions we have within the storms of ourselves. Donar is the Germanic name for Thor and really reading on the Germanic Tribes lately I knew I wanted to implement some high German into this track. Though this approach isn’t for Thor’s warrior shape, I felt this song is perfectly balanced in sky dancing with the clouds. This song would be best for easy listening, sky watching, or even pre ritual Thor blots.
Lyrics for this song is as follows:
Depths of the sea, now rise in me.
Depths of the sea, Thor hear me.
(English)- Depths of the sea now rise in me.
(German)- Die Tiefen des Meeres Steigen, Jetzt in mir auf.
-Depths of the sea, Thor hear me
-Tiefen des meres Thor hort mich
-Hear my storm
-Hore meinen sturm
-Hear me Thor
-Hor mir zu, Thor
3. Fire Spirits –
There’s nothing like sitting back on a warm night, watching the fire dance in the bowl, seeing the flickering flames dance and reflect off everything around them. This is exactly the vision I had when I wrote this song. Firelight, its warmth, and the lost stare into the flame of destiny is what you will see as those who arrive, sit by the fire. Lost in their own mind, they are magically gazed by the spirts of the fire….and in this gaze Fire Spirits was born. Guitar melodies, warm horns, and tribal drums all perfectly placed together to bring the dancing fire from the bowl to your mind. A sense of pride is found in this song, with a tribal connection to the importance of fire, this song would be best by the fire, at night, watching the flames dance away.
4. Little Warrior –
There is no surprise here, Remy’s experience battling cancer flipped a switch in my head and instantly grew my spirit and Fylgja. Remy’s death was very symbolic for me, it took me from a practitioner to a spiritual Seer. Throughout his years he taught me so much about life, caring, love, and passion, but his ultimate lesson he would leave behind was teaching me the beauty of death and its cycle of life. Little Warrior involves tribal drums to display the pounding heart of a warrior, yet pluming strings with gentle strums of bells displays the light and soft spiritual connection that we all have with death. In sense this song is for the true victory of the warrior, so brave, so strong, yet so little in the nature of life and death. I will always hear this song as the song for Remy, his bravery, and smile upon leaving this world, but to others Little Warrior is easily a song you could dedicate to any who may be fighting against and having the odds against them.
5. Dwarves Drinking Game-
Inspired by my viewing of the recent Lord of the Rings TV Show, Rings of Power, I wrote this song in connection with the side of the dwarfs that we didn’t get to see in the movies. Fun, working, and loud I couldn’t help but implement guitar strumming, fun drum claps and some vocal scythes that gave a chanting effect to its nature. Like you would at an Irish pub crawl, this song is for those night out, around the table, feasting and drinking ale. With claps going with the beat, this is a song the party can clap their hands to, or tap their legs, or tap their feet.
6. Faith Love Heart-
This song was actually two songs that I had combined together working with Frigga. There’s something about the end result of whispering winds, with a fiddle picking melody to get lost in, it really brings out the beauty of the goddess. So pure, so clean, so shaped in love, this song is really meant for meditation or craft work when working with goddesses. The more I hear this song, the more I see a story unfolding. The tribal Dis, female spirit that watches my tribe, the Allmother of the family, the woman who brings forth love and beauty. This song can easily be played for private workings with alter work, or as a ritual balance of both life and death as the goddess falls from the sky, accepting back into her the love she gave.
7. Halls of Hel-
Inspired by dream I had right when I list Remy, I recall stepping outside the vet clinic and looking to the sky to see nothing but sky. It wasn’t until that night, crying myself to sleep I had a dream, and at this time I did not know who or what was happening, but in the end, this is where Hela showed me what I needed to see. This song is written in strategic form as my dream played out, walking through what seemed like a muddy path, only to be guided by eyes of wolves into the forest. I could hear a rich calling figure, echoing the calls throughout the forest, swaying trees in motions and in sync. Coming out of the forest was a scene of cliffs, I was alone at this time, the feeling of others was left behind in the forest. What seemed like a shade of blue and grey, turned heavily dark with a scent of lavender inside some iron gates, this is where I seen my first footsteps. The steps were familiar, in my dream I didn’t know who they belonged to, but I knew I had seen them before. At the end of a dark cave like entrance of the gates was a door, gold and Iron with bells hanging from the top, though I didn’t want to just walk in, there was something pulling me into the gates. As I approached the door, this is where I specifically introduced a new rhythm into the song, for behind this door was a hug hall with tables, chairs and people eating and dancing. To my left was many men waiting up the stairs, and to my right was a female, though I could not see her, she was the one calling me to this door, and I knew this in fact was Hela. Just as I opened the door and arrived, seeing my reflection from the shiny floors and warm lighting from the crystal-clear lights above, I opened my eyes and was awake. I wrote this song step by step on how I remember my dream, so delicate, so tasteful, dark, yet visually pleasing. The feeling of animals seeing you, but you couldn’t see them, the breaths of wolves in the air, and that door, that beautiful door. Implements of bells, harmonicas, and drums, with a melody that speaks soft, female steps, it isn’t until the build up of the song that it reveals that Hela has arrived, she’s beautiful, she’s dark, she’s stunning, and everyone knows who she is.
8. Sleipnir-
Inspired by a book I was reading on the consciousness, the steed of the realms allows us to drift away on a free ride of the unknown, that’s what this song is about. Like an open field of flowers, with a warm thunderstorm on the rise, we are free in the field with warm winds crossing our faces, the smell of fresh watery sprints from the hills above. I ask you to stand in the middle of the field and listen to this song. It brings a sense of freedom, joy, and warm rain on a warm spring day. Sleipnir, Odin’s horse such a fast steed, almost as fast as the days that go by and get left behind us, this song is for you to recall the times when life was just one day ahead instead of days behind.
9. Voluspa-
The beginning of it all, this song I wrote guided me down a path to complete this whole album. Many instruments in this song are specifically placed to acknowledge the fact that it took many “streams and waves” to create what we now live through, and this is existence. Shamanic Drums and throat singing bring the Norse vibe to life, reminding you that you are of the sea and soil of this land. Voluspa can be used in mediation, fire music, reading music or in my own practice. It is single handed the song I play when I blot. Gentle with the strings in the song, I played softly to enhance the idea of the many factors that softly changed our world, creating consciousness and adding the bone flutes into the song is like Odin, breathing into us, gifting us the soul of life.
I hope you all like this album, it probably is really some of my best work to date. Keep in mind I purposely try and avoid mimicking other pagan artist or songs, I want to create my own sound, my own journey and my own connection to the spirit. Listening to this album, be open-minded and most of all allow the music to talk to you, not the other way around. I hope you all enjoy it!
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