Nordagust

Nordagust – Official Website
http://www.nordagust.com/
Nordagust - MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/nordagust
Nordagust - Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nordagust/152203358171757
Nordagust – Karisma Records
http://www.karismarecords.no/nordagust.html

Videos!

Nordagust - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/NORDAGUST

Buy Music!

Nordagust - iTunes
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/in-the-mist-of-morning/id394888280
Nordagust – Last FM
http://www.last.fm/music/Nordagust
Nordagust – CDON – (Norway)
http://cdon.no/musikk/nordagust/
Nordagust - Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=Nordagust&rh=n%3A5174%2Ck%3ANordagust&page=1






About: Nordagust

The name "NORDAGUST" comes from a myth, and according to the myth "NORDAGUST" was the spirit of the north wind. The spirit was said to be extremely wise, and was supposed to have insight in all things. The spirit was also called "the grieving souls spirit”.

The idea of "NORDAGUST" was basically to use the wistful, bewitching and recklessness of Norwegian folk music and to integrate this with a form of heavy rock music. With this as a starting point, we have made music from our own impressions and experience. This has of course been done before, but we try hard to find our own expression, with weight on a soulful atmosphere and organic dynamics, above precision and virtuosity.

The soul of the soil

Some things in life may come a little closer when you take a walk in our woods. You will hopefully find energy and inspiration.

Our music is colored by the spirit of the past, when our forefathers lived in and of nature. They believed everything in nature had a soul, and the better you knew the rituals to reach them - the wiser you were.

Our forefathers are all dead and gone, but their homes have been transformed into the forest again. Their struggle for survival through thousand of years has turned into:

"The soul of the soil"

The woods are ours-though we don't own them...

Reviews: - What they are saying:

NORDAGUST – “In The Mist Of Morning”

This Norwegian formation was founded in the late Nineties as a trio but nowadays it has turned into a six-piece band. During the years Nordagust released three demo’s, in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Then the debut CD entitled In The Mist Of Morning was released as a demo in 2007 and in 2010 as an official album by the Norwegian label Karisma Rekords.

The ten compositions are simply structured but contain strong emotional overtones. The climates alternate between dreamy, compelling and sumptuous featuring breathtaking interplay between the Mellotron in its full splendor, intense guitar work and a propulsive rhythm-section. An extra dimension is the vocal contribution, pretty expressive (I notice elements of the late Marc Bolan): the one moment fragile or melancholic, the other moment powerful with a desperate or sad undertone.

Although Nordagust reminds me of the debut albums by Anglagard and Landberk, their sound owns a special flavor because of the huge emotion and the frequent interludes with a lush Mellotron sound, especially the choir-section is mind-blowing! This is perfectly topped by sensitive and harder-edged guitar play. At some moments it sounds a bit more folksy, like in the mellow and wonderful In The Woods featuring dreamy Mellotron violins.

I am delighted about Nordagust and their first official CD release, from my first listening session I am carried away to Progrock Heaven! For sure fans of Anglagard, Anekdoten, Landberk and Sinkadus will be very pleased. But it’s even more recommended to all fellow Tron-maniacs, this is one of the most impressive Mellotron drenched progrock albums I have ever listened to (and I have heard tons of Trons since the early Seventies). So a big hand for Norwegian proggers Nordagust! - Erik Neuteboom for Dutch progrock magazine iO Pages

Background magazine:

Sometimes you get a notification of a certain album released by a certain band. Mostly the band name doesn't ring a bell. This happened to me when I got a press release from In The Mist Of Morning made by the Norwegian band Nordagust. Since my hunger for new music and new bands is always present, I gave the music a try. I checked out some of the sound samples on their MySpace-page which is the easiest way to discover a band. Wow! The music I heard had definitely something to tell and I decided that I would like to hear more of Nordagust! A promo was being arranged and as soon as I received the copy of Nordagust's debut album I put it in my CD-player and...the music hit me right in the face. This album appeared to be a real killer album which kept spinning in my CD-player and in the back of my head for days!

I just couldn't escape from this beautiful progressive rock music. I was addicted to In The Mist Of Morning playing it almost compulsively several times a day. The great Mellotron-parts and the fine melodic guitar sound produced by these Norwegian musicians were just breathtaking. Also the very emotionally sung male lead vocals fit in with the music perfectly. The heavy guitar interludes on some of the tracks are a welcome change in the high level of the compositions. The music from Nordagust is mostly inspired by Norway's beautiful nature. Especially the instrumental track In The Woods contains wonderful playing on the acoustic guitars accompanied by an impressive Mellotron-sound. The music on In The Mist Of Morning - lasting nearly one hour - certainly has some links with other Scandinavian progressive rock bands like Landberk, Anekdoten and Änglagård. However, I realize that the music of Nordagust has a bigger impact on me than these bands.

Despite the quality of the album, I still got a remark to make. Maybe the production could have been better if more money and time had been available. However, this release is a demo originally recorded in 2007. It was remixed and remastered later on for this second 2010-release, but this doesn't prevent me from giving this album the well-deserved highest rating of five stars! All songs are simply perfect and thus this rating is the only way to express my positive feelings towards In The Mist Of Morning. I can't live with less because this album undoubtedly belongs to one of the musical highlights of 2010. Highly recommended! - ***** Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen)

Nordagust – In The Mist Of Morning
Posted on 13/12/2010 by homenucleonics

In The Mist Of Morning is the debut album of the Norwegian band Nordagust (meaning “spirit of the north wind”). On this album the sextet performs a very intense mix of symphonic prog rock and dark medieval music.

When I first heard the music of this band, specifically the opening title track, the early sound of Barclay James Harvest came to my mind instantly as it’s very similar here. Rather slow songs, epic Mellotron sections (including strings, choirs, horns etc.), straightforward guitar work and long instrumental passages are the band’s specialities. This is good on one side because Nordagust manage to sound even better and stronger than BJH at many points, sometimes heading towards symphonic metal like in Mysterious Ways or Elegy. Very interesting is that the band’s lead singer Daniel Solheim sounds like Roger Waters most of the time.

On the other side, all songs share a very similar sound despite the fact that so many classical or unusual instruments like a dulcimer, a mouth harp, saws, kettles and more have been used. But this way a certain atmosphere is created which lasts the whole album. The dark heaviness is essential and always present, partly achieved through the broad but not overproduced sound of the album. This, for genre-specific comparison, is what lacked David Minasian’s latest album. The powerful song structures are the other part of this dark and heavy sound.

Although the song lengths are very different, ranging from three to nine minutes, all songs are equally good as well as the band’s musical abilities. The melodies never become boring and there’s a special tension throughout the whole album, making it even more interesting.

All in all Nordagust’s In The Mist Of Morning is a fantastic debut album with an epic sound and strong melodies. I hope that the band will continue that way. There isn’t much to improve. - written by Wolfgang Merx

Nordagust are:

Daniel "Solur" Solheim - Vocal, Guitar, Keyboard, Samples, Kantele, Dulcimer, Mandolin, Sallowflute, Mouthharp, Conch, Axe and Hammer

Ketil Armand "Bergur" Berg - Drums, Percussion, Kantele, Saw, Accordion, Hammer, Bells, Voices, Grindstone, Kettles and Barrels

Knud Jarle "Strandur" Strand - Bass and business

Jostein Aksel Skjønberg - Keyboard, Voice, Flute

Guro Elvik Strand - Guitar, keyboards

Contact: You can get in touch with the band at the following E-mail adress:
knud-j@online.no