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Biography
Infobox musical artist| name = Solefald ||image = ||background = group_or_band ||Border = black ||origin = Norway ||genre = Avant-garde metal Black metal Post-metal |years_active = 1995–present ||label = Indie Recordings Season of Mist Century Media Avantgarde Music ||website = http://www.solefald.no http://www.solefald.no| associated_acts = Ásmegin Age Of Silence Böh Borknagar Carpathian Forest Darling Divine G.U.T. (Norwegian band)|G.U.T. Grail (band)|Grail Sturmgeist Vintersorg Winds |current_members = Cornelius Jakhelln Lars Nedland|Lazare Nedland | Solefald is a Norway|Norwegian avant-garde metal / black metal band that was formed by members Lars Nedland|Lars Are "Lazare" Nedland and Cornelius Jakhelln in August 1995, with Lars singing and playing electronic keyboard|keyboard / keyboard synthesizer|synthesizer / piano and drum s, and Cornelius singing and playing guitar and bass guitar|bass . The meaning of the band's name is best explained in an interview from Century Media|Century Media Records website." http://web.archive.org/web/20040309031602/ http://centurymedia.de/specials/interviews/solefald.html Century Media Germany - 2004 - An Interview With Solefald" 2004 Lazare states "Solefald is an old Norse word for sunset. We 'stole' it from a painting by the Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen . His two paintings 'Soleglad' and 'Solefald' portrays the cycle of being, and we found it to be a very fitting idea for our band." Cornelius also states "'Solefald' means literally 'the fall of the sun', or just 'sunset'; the way we spell it is Danish language|Danish , from the 19th century."
Biography
Beginnings
Their first official rehearsal together was in 1995 with the song "When The Moon Is On The Wave." They released their first, 5 song demo, entitled Jernlov (translated to Iron Law in English), in 1996. Jernlov was the band's most traditional black metal release, but the band had an experimental edge, incorporating Lazare's clean vocals and piano passages into the black metal formula. They were one of the first bands in the black metal genre to incorporate new elements into the style, including a bag pipe passage in one song.
Linear Scaffold
Touring
Expanding Individual Horizons
Starting in 1998 the two members started branching out into other musical endeavours, with Lazare performing the drums for the album Black Shining Leather by the Norway|Norwegian black metal band Carpathian Forest . Later, in July 1999, Cornelius did guest vocals for the gothic metal band Monumentum for the songs "Black And Violet", a cover of the Italian band Death SS , and "The Colour of Compassion". These recordings were released in 2004 on the Monumentum compilation album, Metastasi .
Neonism
Lazare Joins Borknagar
Following this album, the Solefald camp grew quiet for a little while. Lazare joined progressive metal|progressive black metal band Borknagar as keyboard player and back-up vocalist. In 2000, Borknagar released their first release with Lazare playing with them, Quintessence .
Pills Against The Ageless Ills
In Harmonia Universali
The next Solefald endeavour came in 2003 with the full-length album In Harmonia Universali released March 24, 2003. The album contained 10 songs, with each song's lyrics devoted to various artists, philosophers, and deities. The lyrics are also sung in four languages on this album, English, Norwegian, French, and German. They incorporated a Steinway & Sons|Steinway grand piano, a male choir, authentic Spanish classical acoustic guitar, violin, and saxophone . The music was layered, consisting of composite riffs and leads from the guitars and hammond keyboard sections. Vocally this found Cornelius eschewing his black metal vocal approach, sticking strictly with this throaty spoken word performance. Lazare's vocals stayed primarily the same. This was their last album released on Century Media .
Involvement In Other Bands
In 2003 Lazare continued expanding his involvement in other bands with his inclusion as clean singer into the viking metal|viking / folk metal|folk / black metal|black band Ásmegin . In 2004 he joined the avant-garde metal band Age Of Silence as singer and main lyricist, which includes members such as Andy Winter from the band Winds (band)|Winds , and Jan Axel Blomberg|Hellhammer from such bands as Arcturus (band)|Arcturus , Mayhem (band)|Mayhem , Winds (band)|Winds , and many more. Age Of Silence released a new three song EP entitled Complications - Trilogy Of Intricacy on October 11, 2005 as a lead into their approaching second full-length. Lars has continued to do guest vocal work, being featured on the Winds (band)|Winds album, Prominence and Demise , the Pantheon I album The Wanderer And His Shadow (Pantheon I album)|The Wanderer And His Shadow and the Havoc Unit album h.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia) . He is also still with Borknagar, who released Universal (Borknagar album)|Universal in 2010.
In early 2005, Cornelius released the first full-length album Meister Mephisto , through Season of Mist from his solo band, Sturmgeist , an experimental black metal|black / thrash metal band with industrial metal|industrial overtones. Lazare contributed back-up vocals on this release, along with vocalist Fuchs of Weimar 's Die Apokalyptischen Reiter . Following shortly after the release of Black For Death, Cornelius and Lazare continue to release more music from other projects. Cornelius released his second and third Sturmgeist albums entitled Über (album)|Über and Manifesto Futurista respectively. He also recorded an experimental electronica/metal album under the band name G.U.T. entitled My Only Drug Is Madness . He is also writing the libretto for a contemporary opera telling a story from the Paganism|pagan times of the North.
An Icelandic Odyssey: Red For Fire/Black For Death
Later in the year 2005, the band travelled to Iceland , with funding from Tekstforfatterfondet , to write their next album. Originally planning to release one new album, the group wound up writing so much new material, they decided they would release two new albums. In a quote from the band it was stated "Solefald was experimenting when everybody was being true. Now that things are changing and that we've pushed the experiment quite far already, we wanted "Red For Fire + Black For Death" to be our attempts at being true. This will be a true Nordic Viking Metal album." This two part saga is the story written by Cornelius about Bragi , a Skald in Iceland. Bragi is the king's court poet, until he sleeps with the queen. When this is discovered, the queen lies and claims that Bragi raped her. Bragi is then forced to flee Reykjavík , because he will be killed for what he had supposedly done.
Red For Fire
The first album from this two part saga was released on October 14, 2005, and was entitled Red For Fire: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 1 . This album deals with Bragi's internal struggles with keeping control over his sanity, and his qualms with the gods as he fights to survive in the wilderness. The album featured the inclusion of a violin and cello handling most of Lazare's musical arrangements rather than a synthesizer, female vocals thanks to Aggie "Frost" Peterson, and jazzy saxophone playing.
Black For Death
The follow-up to Red For Fire: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 1|Red For Fire , entitled Black For Death: An Icelandic Odyssey Part 2 , was released through Season Of Mist on November 13, 2006. The album featured Kristoffer Rygg of Ulver on guest vocals. It was announced on March 28 on Solefald's official Myspace page that the band and Season of Mist had parted ways." http://www.myspace.com/solefaldofficial News Update - March 2007 - Season change" March 28, 2007.
Parting Ways with Season Of Mist
As is common with artists, Solefald decided to part ways with their label Season Of Mist. Cornelius issued the following statement on March 28, 2007:
I hereby inform our esteemed fanatici that Solefald have ended the collaboration with Season of Mist. Both parts emerge whole, healthy and happy from the split-up. Long-term Solefald connoisseurs will notice how a two-album dialectic seems to appear through our discography; two first albums with Avantgarde, third and fourth albums with Century Media, then the Icelandic Odyssey with Season of Mist. We have already entered discussion with another record label. Any interested labels out there can still get in touch, albeit fast.
Red for Fire + Black for Death
Cornelius
The Circular Drain
In January 2008, a Solefald remix album, entitled The Circular Drain was released through Cornelius Jakhelln's independent label, Von Jackhelln Inhuman , signed and limited to 1,000 copies. It features remixes by ...and Oceans|Havoc Unit , James_Fogarty#The_Bombs_of_Enduring_Freedom|James Fogarty project "The Bombs of Enduring Freedom" , Zweizz , and others. In addition to these remixes, the CD also contains the entire Jernlov demo, marking the first time it has appeared on a digital medium.
Norrøn livskunst
The band went on to sign with Norwegian label Indie Recordings . They released their 7th full-length, entitled Norrøn Livskunst ("The Norse art of living") on November 15, 2010. The album features guest vocals by Animal Alpha|Agnete Kjølsrud (ex-Animal Alpha, Djerv) who was also featured the album Abrahadabra (album)|Abrahadabra released by Dimmu Borgir in 2010 as well. It also marks Solefald's first guitar solo, brought in by the guest guitarist Vangelis Labrakis of the band, Mencea . The album marked the first time the band recorded an album with nearly entirely Norwegian lyrics. In a press release it was stated that "The lyrics on 'Norrøn livskunst' are written in a 'høgnorsk' style approaching the Norse — the sound ought to cut like a knife!"" http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx? mode=Article& newsitemID=148941 Blabbermouth.net - November 2010 - SOLEFALD: More New Album Details Revealed" November 6, 2010.
Not Just Musicians
Aside from music, Lazare is a newscaster for TVNorge , and Cornelius is an accomplished writer/poet, with many published writings including a tetralogy of poems entitled Quadra Natura . The fourth volume of this four-book collection, entitled Galderhug. Quadra Natura 1111 was published on September 16 of 2008. He has continued having a successful career as an author and was quoted in an interview stating "Being a writer is my job. And my music is… It’s like a "Nebenjob", as you would say in Germany. A passion."" http://www.avantgarde-metal.com/content/stories2.php? id=124 Avant-garde Metal - October 2009 - Cornelius Von Jackhelln interview" October 21, 2009.
Lars Nedland|Lars Are "Lazare" Nedland (ex- Ásmegin , Age Of Silence , Borknagar , ex- Carpathian Forest , ex- Grail (band)|Grail , Böh , Darling Divine ) - Vocals, Piano , Electronic keyboard|Keyboards , Synthesizers , Organ (instrument)|Organs , Drums - (1995-)
Former/live/session members
John Erik Jacobsen a.k.a. Didrik von PanzerDanzer ( Sturmgeist ) - live second guitar - (1998)
Jens-Petter Sandvik - Live bass - (1998)
Tarald Lie - Live drums - (1998)
Silje Ulvevadet Dæhli - Violins on Pills - (2001)
Kjetil Selvik - Saxophone on In Harmonia and Red For Fire - (2003,2005)
Kristian Krüger , Kjetil Selvik , and Sigurd Høye - Choir on In Harmonia - (2003)
Aggie Frost Peterson - Vocals on Red For Fire - (2005)
Jörmundur Ingi - Spoken word on Red For Fire - (2005)
Sareeta ( Ásmegin , Ram-Zet ) - Violin on Red For Fire and Black For Death - (2005, 2006)
Live Julianne Kostøl - Cello on Red For Fire and Black For Death - (2005, 2006)
Kristoffer Rygg a.k.a. Garm a.k.a. Trickster G ( Ulver , Head Control System , ex- Arcturus (band)|Arcturus , ex- Borknagar ) - Vocals on Black For Death - (2006)
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php? id=50 Solefald at Encyclopaedia Metallum
Category:Avant-garde metal musical groups Category:Norwegian black metal musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 1995 Category:Norwegian progressive metal musical groups Category:Post-metal musical groups
