Suffering is a universal experience, whether from loss, trauma, or the inevitable changes life brings. Music has long served as a powerful means of coping, offering a therapeutic resonance that soothes the mind and spirit. Dutch artist Kati Rán within the dark Nordic folk genre, has channeled this concept into her latest album, Sála. Based on Old Norse mythology, the record takes listeners on a journey full of healing, connection, and self reflection while blending Nordic instrumentations.
Kati Rán’s work is steeped in mysticism and history. A skilled vocalist, musician, and producer, she incorporates historical instruments such as the nyckelharpa, Kravik Lyre, and hammered dulcimer to craft immersive soundscapes. Her lyrics, rich with mythology and folklore, are inspired by her extensive travels and research into traditional cultures. With Sála—the Old Norse word for both “soul” and “sea,” Rán delivered a strong album many can resonate with as a path to heal.
Sála weaves personal reflections and mythological narratives resulting in one of the deepest profoundly authentic records of 2024. Metal Insider caught up with Rán earlier this year, discussing the record and how her music serves as a blueprint for healing and reconnection.
What was the inspiration behind the concept of Sála?
Yeah, so my album Sála, the title means it’s Old Norse for sea and soul, capturing both aspects of this album. The sea is themed around the old Norse ocean goddess Rán, a treacherous goddess of sorts in the midst of the North and Nordic mythology. The tracks on the album are named after her mythological nine daughters, or the nine waves in the sea and soul because I tied those nine waves with the soul of the North and all the things that can happen to a human in life that develop your soul. All the emotions we process when we have certain setbacks or challenges or moments of victory and happiness, everything that spurs the growth of one soul and to seek that wholeness throughout, connecting back to nature, history, and each other. In that sense, the album is really a composition of all those elements and seeing the feminine perspective through the Nordic cosmos as a red thread.
The album holds a spiritual connection with more of a meditative and soothing flow, which I found enjoyable. Having to collaborate with several musicians on this record felt surprising. How did you get so many involved in working with you on this record?
Yeah, as well as the audio producer and Jaani Peuhu from Finland. Of course, when we develop a track, initially when I start writing and pre-production, sometimes I like to have a bigger sound, so I work with synthetic layers, plugins, it’s called, for example, bass lines or anything that could be a really good choir in the chorus. And I love to play a lot of instruments on this album myself. I play a variety of historic, Nordic, and medieval instruments. And also with the vocals. I’ve really done as many vocal takes as I think is possible on the solo album, including harmonizations with myself. But relating back to the guests, I do like to add real musicians to my music, and that means that I, of course, sought out people who really master their instrument and have a relationship of sorts with this Nordic hemisphere.
For example, the double bass was performed by Borgar Magnason from Iceland because when one works with Icelandic medieval heritage, it makes very much sense for me to sort of want to bridge to that country itself by inviting a player from that region and to bring that sort of cultish Icelandic sound directly onto the songs. It is the same as for Norway, for example, inviting the goat horn player Karl Seglem on board. I brought him with a vision that I had in mind to open and close the album specifically with that sound.
I always had envisioned it like that, but I’m not a horn player myself. However, Karl Seglem is also the man who brought this instrument back into contemporary music today, which has led to a renewed interest in this traditional instrument. For me, having Karl Seglem do that is an honor, but it also stems from the idea of honoring that traditional culture from the North. Especially as a non-native producer and artist, I feel it’s so important to bridge with the countries of origin and to just co-create beautiful art together.
How was it specifically working with Gaahl on the single “Stone Pillars?”
I love working with Gaahl. Gaahl has become a dear friend of mine. We met when I still did some guest performances with Wardruna together, playing some old instrumentation and backing vocals. Actually, from those early days of origin, we clicked right away. Also stemming from that history of 10 years ago, there were just so few people involved with topics like these and playing these old instruments. And ever since we’ve always stayed in contact and having worked with him on Blodbylgje, which of course is also placed on this album as part of those nine daughters, as part of the cycle, it made sense for me to develop the album further with him. Also talking about lyrical content and just having his energy on the album.
I feel that our voices complement each other very well because of the contrast between us. He has that intense baritone voice and that kind of friction towards my voice; I really like that. I think friction is good in art, and yeah, it’s also a very natural process of working with him. So we only sometimes even need a few words in the studio. I give him a lot of freedom, and he knows he can trust me when it comes to the audio processing and how the track eventually turns out to be; I will find just the right angle to place his voice in there. Working with him is just a natural extension of something we’ve been doing for quite some years now, sometimes guesting on his projects. So yeah, it’s a vibe. He’s really definitely part of my vision for this album.
In addition to the instruments, you have multiple languages throughout this album. What’s it like to incorporate different languages?
Yeah, that’s interesting because, for example, we added English to what else is mainly in the Nordic languages album. Still, sometimes, a song really wants to have a certain direction. For example, for the two songs in English, the lyrics were originally written in English, stemming from a piece of poetry I wrote in 2015, so that’s how long I could churn sometimes on the words I write in my creative journals. And this song sort of wormed its way onto the album. I started to see that it really fitted to the whole concept of what I was working on with the Rán themes. And so that was surprising, but also beautiful because it’s a moment on the album where we are in a little bit of closer contact with the listener by being very approachable with the English language, where everyone can follow along.
And then, as far as the old Nordic languages, I am passionate about it, and having, of course, read the Nordic literature for this project, it made sense to do it in these languages. In particular, the old Norse was absolutely challenging because this is a dead language. It’s not actively spoken anymore today, but that’s the closest we can come to the source material. Writing anew with that language is another layer where the artists can challenge themselves. And I wanted to do that. Also, for the Icelandic, I wanted to write lyrics that reflect old sagas, even make nudges and parallels to the old Skaldic way of writing, but still bring something new and have new thoughts put into song.
So yeah, I just love old languages, also, actually from other cultures than the North. When it comes to old languages, that’s one of my nerd interests. But for this album, it was really nice. And I had courses to help from academics and people who specialized in these old languages. For the old new Norsk, bønder new Norsk, I worked with Krister Vasshus, a linguist professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. So, even though I want to do all of this with my own pen, it’s still also important to recognize this is a real craft. This is not an easy task. You lay upon yourself as an artist. So it’s good to work together with experts.
It’s good that you followed through with the research and didn’t just throw anything in. I’m hoping it’s correct.
Yeah, and I did in the early days. That’s fun because I can see how much I have obsessed with this topic in the last ten years, but my earliest releases are in Swedish or Norwegian. If I look back on it now, it’s beautiful sounds, but it doesn’t resemble proper Norwegian. So, seeing how far you can come, even if you persist, is beautiful.
Are there any particular songs for you that you found more challenging to write?
Yes. From a linguistic perspective, one of the most challenging ones was a SEGIÐ MÉR, with Old Norse, where I have this original text about the burning of Uppsala temples, from source material combined with modernity, with new input because I wanted to make a sort of an anti-war song. I think it is for all ages, unfortunately, as a topic. And to have that feminine voice that speaks out against the aggressor, against nature, against the destruction is sacred. Writing in that language was challenging, let alone singing or screaming at a high pace, but it was also a lot of fun.
Another challenging track that also has one of the most beautiful results was Stone Pillars, the English song with Gaahl and Mitch Harris and Jaani Peuhu on there. That was because I wanted to add a stone marimba that I recorded in Húsafell, Iceland. And this was an instrument that was a little bit rare, hard to find, actually, and took me some years to find the owner and make it happen that I could visit him in the countryside and record it. So yeah, that was kind of a challenging song but also rewarding to do.
I know that there’s healing throughout the album. Is there any particular parts you want to explain about the theme of healing itself?
Yeah, that also stems from how I write songs and why I actually write songs. And for me, every song I write, whether for this project or another, I always try to have a personal alchemy happening in myself. So if I’m working on a theme of loss or death or grief, that means that at the moment that I’m writing the song, I’m processing these emotions and trying to find peace with it or come across something, or to really process an event that happens in my life, and tie that into art and tie that with stories of old, so that we also find peace in the knowing this happens to us in the human life throughout all ages. So, it doesn’t make us special or unique in that sense. You can fall back on our foremothers’ collective wisdom there.
I feel that long line of ancestry, from grandmother to mother to daughter, is needed to pass on wisdom. And so, for me, healing stems from the practice of crafting these songs and vocalizing them. On top of that, in the old Nordic viewpoint, but also in my viewpoint, the voice is connected to your breath. And your breath in that old viewpoint is your soul or the önd. So, vocalizing and singing are also forms of healing in the toolbox we can have as people who still cherish old crafts. And so singing your emotions is a healing process in itself.
That is very true because even for somebody like me, I was singing in my car for no reason, making me feel better. I was having fun and not just healing.
Yes, exactly. And the whole body participates. It’s also a somatic exercise. So yeah, I’m very interested in that topic. And yeah, it’s important to breathe, voice your emotions, and let them out as I did on this record.
I also read that your music is featured in the Netflix series Vikings and some video games. Do you have any more projects like that coming up?
Yes. I’m not allowed to mention the names of them. But I’ve kept working with video game music, and that was really nice also to bring my old instrumentation in there. And also particularly love to do occult voices of monsters, I can tell you that much. I realized that I love to embody different characters through my voice, which you can hear on this album. I use various types of voices to embody different feminine aspects and characters of Nordic mythology. And so also into these other productions, that’s something I learned about myself. I enjoy it, especially if it’s dark or cold whispers and stuff like that. So yeah, I hope to do a lot more of that in the future.
Awesome. That sounds like a lot of fun, actually.
Yeah, and anyone can do it. So I sometimes actually record some of my friends because you just have to get into character.
Do you have any plans, any live shows, any events that you’re looking forward to?
Yeah. Thank you for asking. And the answer to that question is that there has been quite a lot of questions asking for can you bring this live? And for anyone that has heard SÁLA already or is going to, of course, it has become kind of like a massive body of instruments and performers, because I always envisioned a thick and large cinematic sound for this album. And so if we were to bring it to the live stages, it would mean practically we would need to bring a large production to the stage with potentially also multiple instrumentalists and other whatnots. So it would become some sort of a Nordic music theater of sorts if I would perform SÁLA live.
Interestingly enough, there’s still interest and requests for this. So I’m definitely not saying no to this idea of doing this, but might, especially if we’re talking about large productions, might be just for special occasion of sorts. But yeah, my door isn’t closed for that, but it’s not the first thing we are focused on right now because differently than probably a lot of other bands, I consider myself mainly a studio engineer and artist. But it’s still an exciting idea, and we are playing a little bit around with it if it could be possible, and if so, where and how.
Yes, it would be interesting to see the whole thing live, even if it’s just a special event.
I agree. I’m curious myself. So, who knows, maybe. Maybe.
Is there anything else that you want to say or add?
Well, listeners can take the album in for themselves. I want to add perhaps that the album and the lyrical content isn’t necessarily just reflecting on my personal life, like the themes that are speaking about death or illness or heartbreak. I hope to have brought them into these songs as wide open as possible for anyone to step through and feel some sort of solace in that or any other form of feeling. And yeah, I’m just excited to see how the response is going to be overall. And I’m already blessed to have worked with such incredible people, including the guests that I’ve asked to come on my album. They’ve all said yes. I’m just so grateful for that so that I could really bring my vision to life here. So yeah, just gratitude going forward.
Kati Rán’s Sála was released in May 2024 via Svart Records and available to order at this location.
Feature Image Photo Credit: Ruben Terlouw
