Author Archives: Cliff de Booy

Munin, Oliver Satyr’s first solo album

Last year, Oliver Satyr released his first solo album Munin, and this beautiful album ended up as a welcome present under our resident reviewer’s Christmas tree.

On Munin, Oliver Satyr brought together a lovely selection of songs he recorded solo, or with the different side projects he has had over the years together with Kati Rán, Paris Paloma, Gina Wetzel and Boris Koller.

Beautifully packed this album is a must have, not only for the fans of Faun or Oliver Satyr, but for everybody who has a warm heart for neo- and paganfolk.

Want to know more about it? Follow this this link and read what our reviewer Cliff made of this beautiful album. Can you judge a album by its cover? The answer to this question is just one click away.

Oliver Satyr – Munin (2023)

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But what if it concerns a CD, are you allowed to do it then? A quite valid question when it comes to Munin, Oliver Satyr‘s first solo album, as its cover is actually a whole book. 60 pages of memories to be precise. Each memory connected to to the eleven songs Oliver selected for this album. Each memory illustrated with period pictures and some beautiful illustrations, making this album something really personal.

Folk Noir

But is is not only personal for Oliver Satyr. I have my own memories attached to some of the songs as well. One of the first pagan folk albums I bought was the EP Songs From Home by Folk Noir, a project Oliver formed in 2012 together with his then-partner Kati Rán. It is still one of my all time favourite folk albums.
Oliver and Kati share the same type of silky soft voice. Nourishing; caressing; poetic; warm. That fate brought those two voices together is a gift from the Norns I’m still grateful for. I am so glad one of the songs Kati and Oliver recorded together, The Road, has found its way on Munin. As did the Paris Paloma version of You Should Have Seen Me There. In my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful folk songs ever recorded. Soft, poetic and tender in every word sung, every guitar note played, it caresses my ears and calms my mind every single time I hear it. Especially the marimba rhythm flowing through the whole song, soothing me into a trance, only enhanced by Paris and Oliver’s whispered singing, their voices blending together just as well as Kati and Oliver’s did.

The official video clip of The Road performed by Folk Noir – 2012

The Ragged Wood and She Moves Through The Fair are the two other songs from that precious Folk Noir EP that found its way onto Munin. And I’m glad they did. They showcase Oliver Satyr as the poetic minstrel he is.

Feengold

In 2020 Oliver made another album born out of love, this time with his current partner Gina Wetzel.

It, too, was a combination of a book and an album. The album, called Feengold, was a limited edition hardcover fairy tale book beautifully illustrated by Gina, containing an audio CD with songs, spoken fairy tales and poems, all spoken by Oliver himself. A true collector’s item.
Four songs of Feengold were selected for Munin: Der Wettersee, Mit Uti Gröna Lunden, Knivens Polska and Näktergal. The first two songs are in the same style as Folk Noir. Oliver has that magical ability to create poetry, not only with his voice but also with the music he plays. His arrangements are both subtle and calming, but also rich, warm and full, forming a blanket of sound that give his beautiful voice all the room it needs. The subtle samples and rhythms he puts under it give it a sort of acoustic ambient folk feel. It’s a sound I find truly mesmerizing. I cannot help but sink deeper and deeper into the songs until I become one with them. That’s the magic of Oliver Satyr’s music.

Der Wettersee by Oliver Satyr and Gina Wetzel, Illustrations by Gina Wetzel

Swedish Folk

Besides neofolk, Oliver also has a second love: Swedish folk. A love he explored to the fullest on long nights playing with Boris Koller, a nyckelharpa player and painter from Austria with whom he formed Kaunan.
Of course we can also find this love back on Munin. Knivens Polska, Näktergal and Polska Efter Lorn Anders are three short instrumental melodies that take us deep into the dark snow-rich Swedish forests where we can find our lone musicians around a winter’s campfire, playing to keep warm. Playing with a feeling of longing and intent that make me wonder if they aren’t half satyr, half troll themselves, forest creatures on their way to who knows where. Maybe the forest on the cover of the album? We will never know.

All in all Munin is just what Oliver promised it would be: a journey through his memories, written in music. But it also showcases the unique talents of one young musician who watched other bards play, sitting around the campfires of the German medieval markets many, many years ago. Well, he became just that. A minstrel, a poet, a fairy tale teller and an artist who embodies all that is beautiful about neofolk.

Munin is only availabe in the Faun webshop or at a Faun concert. Make sure you visit them this season to get hold of this beautiful album – it is well worth it.

Cliff

Editor: Iris
CD cover photo: Gina Wetzel
Graphic design cover: Gabriel deVue (FB)

Oliver Satyr can be found here:

Guilty pleasures

Cliff has been a bit Naughty. At CeltCast we have our guilty pleasures. Bands that don’t play Acoustic European Folk so we can’t play them on the station, but we hold very dear to our hearts. Sunfire is one of those bands, so although their new album The Devils Drink is not eligible for an official review on our CeltCast page he still couldn’t resist himself, so he wrote a reviewing article and hid it in the news section, thinking we wouldn’t find out. Off course we did, but as we all share his guilty pleasure we want to share the link anyway. Enjoy the read. Just don’t tell him we did this 😉

The Devils Drink, Sunfire’s new album finally out

On Friday the 17th of November, Sunfire released their long awaited new Album The Devils Drink, just a day before the premiere of their Tales Of The Old West theatre tour in Rijswijk, and it is everything it promised to be. A wonderful collection of western folk songs as only Sunfire can make them.

Opening song The Devils Drink is a great introduction to their new theatre show. It is a ballad with a strong theatrical feel reminiscent of Ye Banished Privateers, or the Spleen Orchestra, even making me think of an old classic like: If I Were A Rich Man from the musical Fiddler On The Roof but always with that unique Western folk feel Sunfire have.
The sound of Sophie’s sobbing violin combined with Satria’s breaking gritty voice truly make this song. The ‘broken-pianola-playing-over-a windswept-violin’ segment becomes the first icing on this wonderful western folk cake.

For those who do not know Sunfire yet, the band makes a powerful mix of Americana and blue grass with touches of European folk, brought with the sharpness, power and energy that comes pretty close to some good old stoner rock. In Sunfire’s case, I find it extremely hard to think of bands to compare them with as they really have their own signature sound, but artists in the style of The Last Knife Fighter, Mean Mary or J.J. Cale come to mind, albeit Sunfire’s music is more rough and feisty than the before-mentioned artists.

We have come to know main lyricist Satria Karsono as a true storyteller, setting his songs in a version of the old wild west that seems to come from the combined minds of Sergio Leone and Tim Burton. We find his alter ego William J. Tanner in that dirty old place called Sinners Town again, where only the lowlifes, the bad and the ugly can survive. This album is filled with more stories of madame Sawyer, Deputy Frost, Banker Henry River and off course William J. Tanner himself.

Sunfire took their time recording this record, so many songs already became well known live favourites The Dolly Parton follow-up song Jolene for example; or the tragic ‘failed-marriage-before-it-even-started’ song Silently Passed Away; the upbeat americana-folk song Frost; Seven Deadly Sins with an interesting re-arrangement half way through, or the cheeky fan favourite Sawyer’s Dance.
The new songs: The Devils Drink – which I mentioned above; Ballad of River – a dark murder ballad that tells you nothing but suggests everything; One Day – a duet with Brotherwood singer Nicole Koning-Bouw, starting gently but building up to an impressive ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky on steroids’ climax; and the country ballad Leave The Bottle, they all fit right into the Sunfire world we got to know so well.

My personal favourite songs would be Grit, a heart wrenching power ballad showcasing the best of Satria’s abilities as a singer. A grooving bass, guitarriffs that cut like a chainsaw and a windswept violin provide the perfect basis for Satria’s anguished end notes. Truly awesome stuff!

My second favourite has to be Sunfire’s Opus magnum The Hunter. A western Folk epos equaling John Miles’ masterpiece Music. A whole movie in one song, epic in its build, played sharp as a knife, building up to a climax played with so much attack, so tight, it really sounds like a gunfight put down to music! Breathtaking is the word here! The whole album is perfectly mixed, but here sound engineer Berend de Vries and Jeffrey de Gans, who was responsible for the mastering, truly shine!

The Devils Drink brings you Sunfire at their very best. Catchy songs, talented musicians and lyrics with a dark sense of humour that puts a smile on your face every single time you hear them. Which leaves me with one question. Is that a hidden track suddenly popping up at two-thirds of the album? If so it is a last masterstroke of this awesome band that knows how to surprise even their biggest fans time and time again, including me.

Cliff

Editor: Sara Weeda

PS: coming back to that theatre tour… It’s brilliant! Truly original in its setup, bringing the best out of the story telling qualities hidden within the band. Even bringing out their acting skills! You don’t want to miss out on this. Trust me, you really don’t!

You can find Sunfire here:

New Interview & Review: Furda – Bojany (2022)

This album has been turning its round in my CD player for about a year now, and it is still a firm favorite of mine.

Furda is a young band from Poland who easily mix Nordic folk with Middle European vibes. Who seamlessly blend ‘old’ traditional instruments with modern techniques and effects. Who manage to maintain an ‘antique’ sound while improvising most of their songs live on stage. Who have written some unique primordial troll-like songs that will definitely appeal to all those who love slightly dark Neo Folk music.

References I used in the review were Irfan, Fuimadane and SeeD. The band themselves are Influenced by Heilung (FB), OMNIA and Lorn. The outcome is one of the best debut albums I have heard in years.

Follow me here for an extensive review with-interview-sniplets, or here for a full interview with Boleslaw Ren Rygiel singer, percussion and wind instrument player with Furda, or go straight to their music in the links below and be just as enchanted as we at CeltCast are.

Cliff

Furda can be found here:







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