Folkearth

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Folkearth
Origin	International
Genre(s)	Folk metal Viking metal
Years active	2003 – present
Label(s)	Stygian Crypt Productions
Website	folkearth.cjb.net

Folkearth is an international music project, created by musicians playing folk and viking metal. The name (folk + earth) symbolizes musicians from all over the world playing folk music.^[1]

1 History
2 Style
3 Lyrics
4 Band members
- 4.1 Current members
- 4.2 Former members
5 Discography
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

The band started in 2003^[2] as an idea of Ruslanas from Lithuania, who sent the idea to his friendly bands. With Magnus Wohlfart from Nae'blis as a composer of music, Wulfstan and Athelstan from Forefather and Marios "Prince Imrahil" Koutsoukos as lyric composers the group started to form. Many other musicians were recruited and finally in spring 2004 the recording started.^[3]There was around 60 minutes of material, but some of it got lost, and the album A Nordic Poem is only 40 minutes long.^[4] Because of the bad quality of this record, the band decided to remaster and reissue their debut.^[2] 2006-09-01, shortly after the reissue of A Nordic Poem the seccond album titled By the Sword of My Father is released. Even more bands, such as Van Langen, Thiasos Dionysos, Hildr Valkyrie, Death Army, The Soil Bleeds Black have joined Folkearth in the production of this album, so the total line-up consisted of 31 musicians from 8 different countries. Folkearth's latest album Drakkars in the Mist was released 2007-05-28^[2] with the biggest lineup so far. Currently, more than 30 musicians are working on the 4th album.^[1]However, some people believe, that in many cases the lineup for Folkearth has been extended unnecessarily, since a token performance on a single track will list someone on the booklet as a full-fledged member.^[5] The band members also don't make money out of the project, and do not promote it, probably because of the lack of funds.^[6]

Because of the musical project's complex structure, Folkearth has not performed live, and it's unlikely they will perform live in the future.^[3]

[edit] Style

Because of the unical structure of Folkearth, the recording is also different from the one that the usual bands do. Each song begins from one single person or band that is involved in Folkearth and later the other members add their touch to it. Sometimes the work on a single song is based on a single riff or melody, other times some artist writes a song entirely on his own and other musicians simply orchestrate minor details on it. The band members also don't work all together, but rather with small groups, exchanging material they recorded with others.^[1] The music Folkearth makes is regular folk/viking metal, but the notable thing about it is that they incorporate a diverse selection of folk instruments, such as lute, nyckelharpa, shawm, saz and many others. Because of the nature of this project, Folkearth albums are inconsistent, and sound rather like compilations and the musical style vary from one track to another, some are closely related to black metal.

[edit] Lyrics

The lyrics are all written in english with the exception of "Gryningssång". The main topic of Folkearth's lyrics are ancient history, beliefs, and mythology, especially Norse mythology. Celtic mythology and Greek mythology are also present in Folkearth's lyrics.^[1] Folkearth's songs tell stories and their purpose is to entertain, not to carry symbolic or personal message.