Released a banger over on Æthyrien X that played around with the idea of a Trap song with Vivaldi-style violins about Skadi longing to return to the mountains after spending 9 days at sea with Njordr. What do you all think?

Its been a while since this release!

Another release from my project Wastelander X.
This time a bit darker atmosphere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgWetRuebrs

Just released another Wastelander X song "Wasted in Time"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pouS1pQd59U

one of my fav lesser-known ambient viking/nordic releases:
https://nordanatt.bandcamp.com/album/kaldur-vindur-sv-rtu-l-ndunum

This is the first single for Æthyrien X, the 'eXperimental' version of Aethyrien. The goal with this side project is to retell the old Norse stories and lore through a new lens layered over modern music while not abiding by any certain genre. Every track is based on a specific story from Norse lore, so every track will be unique in its own right. Often times the lyrics will use Old Norse, or even be completely in Old Norse. This is a very ambitious project, but essentially my playground where I will release whatever creative concept comes to mind without worry of fitting a predefined genre or sound. I hope you enjoy this as much I as did composing it!!

The Process: I use a very involved process of using AI to render me hundreds of vocals and music, splitting the tracks into STEMS, combining/composing them in my DAW (Reaper), adding effects, more instruments, atmosphere, etc.

LYRICS:

[Hermóðr]
Through grim and darkened paths I tread,
To Hel's cold gate, where rot the dead.
The stench of flesh, it fills the air,
A journey bleak, of deep despair.

Bones littered 'cross the path I ride,
Screams of torment, the damned, they cried.
Their hollow eyes, devoid of light,
In endless pain, eternal night.

Here It was dark, the dread profound
In this abyss where horrors abound
each step i take my hope decays
lost in Hel's grip, a chilling haze

With every breath the coldness seeps
into my bones, the terror creeps
a land forsaken, void of grace
despair and fear, i now embrace!

"O Baldr fair, my brother lost!
To Hel I go, at any cost!
Through realms of night, I make my plea!
To bring you back, from misery!"

"Damn you, Hel, for the darkness you've spun!"
"RELEASE! MY! KIN!"

"I beg with dread,
Among the piles of severed heads.
In this dark place, where all is bled!"


Baldr speaks as shadows creep,
His voice a whisper, soft and weak.


Janos Lengyel
"I long to see the light once more, To leave this cold, eternal shore.
And feel the warmth I knew before,
(Hel: Silence you fool...)
Escape this fate, forevermore"

[Hel]
SILENCE!
You're mine...
Unless all weep Hermóðr you've wasted my time.

Cold as Niflheim's frozen deep (yes!)
I cradle death, in silence i keep. (I keep!)
Beneath my touch, the whole world shall weep. (hahaha)
From my abyss, Baldr I keep

For if the whole world shall not weep
Then your dear Baldr shall I keep

Oh if the whole world shall not weep
Then your dear Baldr shall I keep (Ha!)

Unless all weep Hermóðr you've wasted my time...

[Hermóðr]
With heavy heart, I turn away,
A task so great, a price to pay.
Through realms of night, I beg my plea
To bring you back, from misery.

"O world of men, now hear my call,
Weep for Baldr, weep one and all.
For in your tears, his life may lie,
Or in Hel's grasp, he’ll ever sigh."

Doing some finishing touches on the first single of Æthyrien X. While this is using a ton of AI for the foundation, as you can see in the second image, I'm quite literally still composing the song itself. While AI is incredible and has been exponentially advancing, it is still very limited. This first track is about Hermóðr riding to Helheim to free his brother from Hel's domain. I have given personalities to all three in this track, Hermóðr, Baldr and Hel herself. This project is unlike ANYTHING I have ever done so please go into it with an open mind.

This track in particular is very "theatrical". The next track may not be anything like this song. This is why I am very excited about Æthyrien X. It's freedom. I can literally do anything without limitations. The only code I will follow is providing a fresh perspective on storytelling the Old Norse poetry. <3

I hope to release this track later today on my new channel:

Æthyrien X - Ferð Hermóðrs til Heljar (Hermóðr's Journey to Hel)
Sub to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AethyrienX
Hail Braggi!

A bit of Story Time for fun:
Looking back on some of my old memories from a couple years ago, it's crazy to me that I only could speak like 3-4 words in Danish. Despite my family coming from Denmark, I never cared to learn the language growing up. Most of that was due in part to the fact that in America my family began very split and broken. I grew up with parts of my blood family and two step families here in America during my upbringing, all down in Texas of all places. With this, I also never learned much about our culture, a lot due in part that I held a lot of animosity towards my blood family, most of which came down to religion. My grandfather raised me for the majority of my upbringing, teaching me the animatic ways of life, and in turn I was not Christian, something the majority of my blood family refused to accept, and due to a lot of the fighting and terrible things because of this growing up, I refused myself as a Dane. I didn't want to be like my family for the longest time, I spent a long time wishing my blood was that of my step families that took care of me at times throughout my childhood. Now to spare the 25 years of my history I'll skip ahead to the last 4 years. While I've always been pagan, I explored with many different spiritualities and occult things the past 13 years outside of my more animistic pagan upbringing as a child. In part of 'not wanting to be a Dane' I had actually cast off doing any work with Norse Paganism for a very long time, I had only learned about the runes and such when I was younger, and animistic ways but outside of that I didn't care very much, the same way I never cared to learn Danish. I know it sounds silly and stupid, but Norse Paganism being Scandinavian was too close to being like my family, even though they were very heavily Christian, but I wanted nothing to do with anything from that area for a good portion of my life. And of course over the past few years, I realized just how stupid it was. But in 2021 when Valheim Released, and I got a sudden spark to start caring, I really dove right in, and when I discovered Fuimadane that year, I really got behind the phrase. Fuck you im a Dane. From there i started embracing who i was, enjoying the Norse Myths and history, and i even embraced my accent a bit more, though not speaking any Danish i felt a bit dumb, and began taking the time to learn the language, asking my grandma whom i had not had much contact with over the years to teach me some things, and unfortunately greatly regretting being so disconnected from my blood family for so long, as my great grandma who really had the well of knowledge about of family had passed away during my teen years when I had completely distanced myself from my blood family. Now this did cause some conflicts, my emergence did upset the very Christian people on my family, and we still do not get along, but me and my grandma do find common ground and get along despite our religious differences. I connected with more family members in Denmark, and even some extended family in Sweden! Which was all really exciting, but the connection really has not held, unfortunately my family over seas also holds the same religious values and gets infuriated about my religious views the same as the bits of my family here in America. However despite butting heads heavily with my family, I continued on my journey, I delved further into the ways of Forn Seð, and very much embraced my Danish self and its brought me where I am today. And i really have to give a lot of thanks to Fuimadane, when I discovered him, and the meaning on why his artist name was Fuimadane, this invigorated me and gave me a lot of drive to stand up and go FUCK DIG JEG ER DANSKER! Anyways if you read all this, thanks for reading my silly and complex upbringing in America, it was a very rough and complicated childhood to day the least and of course all the real bad and not good things im not going to put here, but in looking back on things in my life, im happy how things turned out, that i was able to embrace myself and my spiritual path.

I need your opinion! Drop me them in the comments!! ❤

5 months ago I discovered an exciting path and new 'technique' to writing music. I have been sitting on 5 extremely experimental songs. The goal with these were to take a deep dive into retelling Old Norse stories, but through all kinds of modern styles of music. These will never be released under the name 'Aethyrien', but I am really leaning on calling this unique journey Aethyrien X, as the X in the name stands for 'Experimental'. I'd rather not screw up any sort of algorithms concerning the original Aethyrien name and sound, but this music is still Aethyrien to its core.

TECHNIQUE: A major part of what makes these tracks possible is the use of AI. I have developed a new technique where I write lyrics and generate an insane amount of tracks in the style I hear in my head. I then split the tracks into individual STEMS (also using AI) and rebuild the song the way I want it in Reaper while recording my own music and weave it into this extremely unique style. None of these tracks were completely produced by AI and each track has taken weeks to actually pull off. In fact, these tracks typically take 3x as much time producing compared to writing music without AI like I do with Aethyrien, especially due to the heavy storytelling aspect.

SIDE NOTE: A lot of the tracks will also have old norse lyrics, something I have not been able to do myself until now.
What are your thoughts?

Aethyrien X or something entirely different? Additionally, what are your thoughts on AI in music these days? I don't see it ever going anywhere at this point.

Reindeer Antler Whistle
New product release from Frostwave Audio!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TrNR1B5W_k&t=0s