Sixth Comm
The Fruits of Yggdrasil

The year 1987 is a key year for apocalyptic folk: in 1987, "Brown Book" by Death in June is published, which later became the manifesto of the genre; 1987 is also the year of "Swastikas for Noddy", a crucial album in the career of Current 93, as it marks the transition from the crude industrial explorations of the origins to a more distinctly folk dimension. Finally, 1987 marks the debut of the third key entity of apocalyptic folk, Sol Invictus by Tony Wakeford (ex-Death in June), as he releases the EP "Against the Modern World".

Many do not know that 1987 is also the year of the release of a little gem that deserves not to be forgotten and buried by the dust of time: I am talking about "The Fruits of Yggdrasil", not directly attributable to the genre, but still connected to the scene because of the names involved.

For those who do not know, Sixth Comm is the project of Patrick Leagas, also an ex-Death in June member, who, following the release of "Nada!", embarks on his solo journey in the vein of a more canonical dark that directly anchors to the eighties wave, but not without charm and depth (but we will talk about this separately).

Freya Aswynn is, on the other hand, a well-known figure in the apocalyptic landscape of the period, whose imprint can be found in the already mentioned "Swastikas for Noddy" by the Current and later in the works of Fire + Ice. Not really a singer, Aswynn is a scholar of Norse mythology and runic texts, to which she has dedicated books and articles, as well as her entire life (to the point, in my opinion, of losing a few marbles...).

From the union of these two characters (portrayed in the suggestive black and white of the beautiful photo on the album's back cover: Leagas hooded and dressed in black, the terrifying Aswynn with long blonde hair and a wrinkled face, standing amid the bare trees of a not-too-comforting forest backdrop) springs one of the most sensational albums the esoteric landscape has known.

Attributable to the early works of Current 93, and (more vaguely) to Diamanda Galàs of the "Divine Punishment/Saint of the Pit" era, "The Fruits of Yggdrasil" is actually a unique album in its kind. More than music in the strictest sense, "The Fruits of Yggdrasil" sounds to us rather like a heartfelt tribute to Norse mythology, something that mysteriously oscillates between a scientific treatise and a mystic invocation where the arcane and supernatural copulate as we have rarely heard elsewhere.

Yggdrasil is, according to Norse mythology, the cosmic tree, the tree that supports the nine worlds (which make up the Universe), the tree that plunges its roots into the Underworld and whose branches support the Celestial Vault: the "Gallows of Odin", according to the myth in which Odin, in order to achieve higher wisdom, sacrifices himself by hanging there for nine days and nine nights.

The tree at whose base lies the fountain of wisdom, to access which Odin loses an eye; the tree from which the Runes bloom, the symbols through which Odin spreads wisdom across the Universe.

"The Fruits of Yggdrasil" thus unfolds in eight invocations, written and interpreted by Aswynn, drawing directly from the Edda (the three poems selected are "Havamal", "Voluspa", and "Sigdrifamal") and passages from Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

Leagas, strong in his versatility and familiarity with a variety of instruments, is able to generate sonic landscapes that perfectly combine crude industrial excursions and arcane ritual litanies. A professional percussionist, but also a skilled trumpeter, and competent behind keyboards as well as synthesizers, he performs his work with icy efficacy, never stealing the spotlight from Aswynn, the true protagonist of the work.

The vocal performance of the dark priestess is indescribable and beyond every vocal scheme: between hallucinatory recitations and chilling rituals, Freya Aswynn manages to pin us to the wall and terrify us only with the sensation of the arcane and ancestral that her powerful and disorienting chant is able to evoke. Her voice is merely an instrument used to reveal the secrets of the Runes, her restless hovering never descends into directly horror solutions, yet the blood freezes when that discordant and limping voice suddenly soars and declaims undecipherable verses, belonging to remote epochs.

Chilling the first composition "Havamal", twelve minutes of "free invocations" (from which the entire project stems, thus to be considered the pivotal episode of the work) in which we recognize some of the rituals that have appeared and will appear in albums of other protagonists of apocalyptic folk (Current 93 and Sol Invictus most of all). What frightens are the terrible high-pitched notes from Aswynn that break in the midst of the narrations, full of magical formulas, enchanting words belonging to archaic, magical languages, more magical than musical. The martial rumbling of Leagas' drums, the gashes of icy electronics, and the solemnity of the trumpets that recall a certain warlike imagery (trademark of the ex-Death in June) do the rest, erecting a ritual that finds no comparisons in modern esoteric music.

The seven following tracks, much shorter, are less impactful, and almost fillers meant to complement the monumental opener (recalled in "Sigdrifamal", the other complex track of the album).

However, more due to Leagas' compositional intelligence than to Aswynn's conceptual intransigence, the episodes flow effortlessly, each with its own well-defined identity. "Voluspa" boasts the sinister chimes of a piano, while a charming harp soothes the mood in "Wotan". The suggestive howling of wolves and the sudden downpour of a storm unsettle the unresolved tension of "Invocation of the Gods"; enveloping keyboards, finally, transport the fairytale "North Star", which, strengthened by a paced drum-machine, sounds to us like the most musical moment of the batch.

Freya Aswynn, trapped in the demanding conceptual patterns of her rituals, does not give much to musicality. Only in "Nothing" does she engage in formidable vocal stratifications (the result of overdubs), recalling the more infernal gestures of Galàs. Also attributable to the repertoire of the Greek-American singer is the harsh finale of "Ragnarok", echoing the abrupt tones of a fiery (pseudo) Carmina Burana.

So congratulations to these two personalities of the British dark underground, while for us, there is nothing left to do but be annihilated in the darkness of our rooms and erased under the blows of these eight inhuman odes that seem written to open doors to other worlds. Keyword: HAGALAZ HAGALAZ!