As I described in my last post for this series, Towards the Within, I have decided to do a bit of discovery when it comes to music and report back what I found on that adventure. Briefly: I seeded a “radio station” on YouTube Music with several darkwave and experimental folk bands, set it at high discovery and high artist variety. I tried to give preference in my “seed” to non-English-speaking artists to drive the algorithm in that direction. And then, I set off a darkened path and into the labyrinthine woods I had just created.
Did I find something interesting in the deep woods? Or did the monsters eat me?
And so far, I’ve run into very little music with which I am familiar. Some of that seems to be that the “radio station” is leaning into true indie music, which I appreciate. You might ask me how the quality has been? Well, some of it is very roughly produced and could use lots more polish. Bands can be too close to their own music to engineer and produce it in a manner that brings out their true talents. Or they lack the software/hardware to add that polish. While I didn’t skip many songs, there were a few so far that not only failed to get a like, but were disliked and skipped.
the first, kind of
One of the first songs that really made my ears perk up caught me by surprise. The song sounded familiar in an unfamiliar way, if that makes sense. A modern van nomad named Tal Barr was listed as the artist.
The song that caught my attention was “If I Had a Heart”, but Tal seemed too indie of an artist for me to have likely encountered her in my past — although I do listen to plenty of obscure bands.
As I dug deeper, it became clear that this was from her first album, which contained a number of covers and traditional songs. Heart was one of those songs and I quickly realized where I had heard a version of it before: while watching The Vikings, a historical television drama based on the life of Ragnar Lodbrok.
The original version of the song was written and performed by the artist Fever Ray. And that version grabbed me more. That’s no slight to Tal, but Fever Ray’s version has more of a haunting quality to it that I can’t get out of my head.
fever ray’s heart
While some of you may be familiar with Fever Ray because of The Vikings or, perhaps, for other reasons (their music has been used in numerous movies and television shows), I was only passingly familiar with their name — likely because I noticed in passing while watching The Vikings on one of my rare bouts of television binging (I rarely watch television, and largely eschew binging). As I read another commenter say elsewhere, I usually skip the beginning credits when I can, but The Vikings was an exception to the norm. I would usually let it play on because I liked the music.
The song is slower in tempo, with an almost tribal feel to the sound. “Haunting” is a perfect description and, while it is sung in English, it does have that northern European vibe to it. In other words, almost exactly the sound I was hoping to hear more of when I first set off on this journey.
In reality, I had forgotten about the song after my interest in the show waned. I always meant to check out the artist behind the song, but never got around to it.
While their version of the song did not appear on my radio, it was through the discovery process that I remembered that I have intended to listen to more. So, by way of Tal Barr (thank you), I have recovered what I had forgotten I had lost. The labyrinth works in weird ways.
I’m going to modify my discovery process to see if it iterates into something really cool by removing the previous one artist from the seed and adding the one or two that caught my attention.
After you listen to If I had a Heart, please give me your impressions and thoughts in the comments below.
17 responses to “Towards the Within — If I Had a Heart”
I remember the series (assuming it’s the same one as was shown over here some years back). I’ll track down the track!
BTW your ‘test’ post came back with a 404 – don’t know whether you’d deleted it.
Yeah, I deleted the post because I thought I had solved my issues… Until I discovered that I hadn’t. The problem is not consistent, so I decided to go this other route with commenting.
I think it should be the same series. I was quite the talk of media while it was active in the US. If you have to hunt it down, does that mean my embed is not allowed in the UK? I could see if I could find a different one that is not region-locked.
Ok, so your reply didn’t come through to me at WP, and it’s only because I wanted to update you that I discovered it. Holding a conversation might prove a bit tricky if I have to keep loading your posts!
Anyway, I listened to ‘Heart’ and yes, it’s fairly atmospheric. I followed this up with a few more tracks which I quite hot into (cheers).
Slightly askew (as in a bit more electronica based, but still dark and atmospheric) if you haven’t already done so, you might want to give Lebanon Hanover a spin.
And talking of Vikings (which we weren’t, and forgive me if I’ve mentioned this before) but have you ever watched Valhalla Rising? Good film imo.
Yes, that is the negative element to this commenting system. I may go back now that I cannot insist on the one feature I wanted deployed. I’ll do some more testing though. I’m very frustrated by this commenting problem.
I’ve heard a few songs by LH, I think they might have been part of the initial seed, I’ll have to check.
I keep meaning to watch that film. You’ve mentioned it before and I never got around to it. Back on my radar….
That’s very odd — your replies pop up in Reader for me 🫤
Could it be that you are not using your WP account to comment here? I notice the different email from what you had from an old contact form (I know it is probably different b/c of that email issue you mentioned).
Interesting. That may be the case. I’m assuming that I can alter it here. If I can I will let you know re comments.
Rejoicing! Looks like it worked.
I don’t know if you tried changing your email via the Gravatar interface (Automattic owns it), but you might have luck doing that if you can otherwise sign in. I just modified mine to reflect this site last week and didn’t have any issues to speak of.
Kept it simple and just re-subscribed with the email which is attached to it, but it might be an idea to see if I can so that I can access comments that might otherwise get lost. Cheers.
I’ve re-subscribed using my old (dodgy) email. Fingers crossed.
You are here!
Oh, and on a completely different note, our daughter dropped the following into our collective laps the other day: ‘You ought to listen to this (Hintermass being the band in question) as I work with the chap behind it, Tim’.
Turns out he was the guitarist with the band ‘Broadcast’ (late ’90’s early 2000’s). May well not be your taste, but if you’re open to something a little different and you’ve got a spare hour…
I’ll check it out. I’m always up for a new band to check out.
And whilst I’m still here, I will mention a couple of artists you may well be familiar with (on the fringes of what you’re looking at really): Emma Ruth Rundle and (when I’m in the mood) Ritual Howls.
I’m off for a coffee and a read!!
The labyrinth works in weird ways, yes! I discovered this song a few autumns ago, when I was in Oregon. A most fitting vibe for walking through a foggy morning. 👍🏻
It definitely has that autumny, under a harvest moon feel to it. I need to check out more from the artist. If the rest of their stuff is anything like that sound, I will definitely want more.
On a side note, it looks like you’re not having difficulties commenting. Fingers crossed that I’ve overcome that frustration. 🤞
Yes, it does! I’ve listened to it a few times since. Love the mysterious and unique sound. ✨ No trouble commenting. 🙌🏻