Sol Invictus (band)
| Sol Invictus | |
|---|---|
 Sol Invictus at the Elfenfolk Festival |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Neofolk |
| founding | 1987 |
| Current occupation | |
| Tony Wakeford | |
| Guest musician | |
| Renée Rosen | |
bass |
Caroline Iago |
| Lesley Malone | |
Percussion, dulcimer , synthesizer
|
Reeve "M" Malka |
| Guy Harries | |
violin |
Eilish McCraken |
Sol Invictus is an English neofolk band formed in 1987 by Tony Wakeford .
Band history
In 1987 Tony Wakeford returned to the music business after the breakup of his band project Above the Ruins and his departure from the right-wing scene with Sol Invictus. He was supported by Ian Read and (from the second album) Karl Blake from Lemon Kittens and Shock Headed Peters . The music of Sol Invictus was a mixture of folk-acoustic and experimental-electronic sounds. This sound marked the first three albums Against the Modern World , In the Jaws of the Serpent and Lex Talionis .
In 1991 Ian Read left the band and founded Fire + Ice . With Sol Invictus, Wakeford moved more in the direction of a “dark” folk music variant (or “Folk Noir” in his own words) and brought in new and changing musicians. The following Sol Invictus albums sounded correspondingly different; although the influence of European folk music was always in the foreground, the emphasis sometimes shifted towards neoclassic or progressive rock .
Since the 1990s, Wakeford has been commuting back and forth between his homes in London, England, and France, which is why he made many recordings with French guest musicians (Stephane Ruiz, Eric Roger). Karl Blake, Wakeford's musical companion since 1988, left the band after the album The Devil's Steed (2005), as did Eric Roger. Andrew King, producer Reeve “M” Malka and the musicians Caroline Jago and Lesley Malone now determined the musical appearance of the band.
In March 2008 the contract with the German label Auerbach Tonträger, a subsidiary of Prophecy Productions , was announced. The first release of Sol Invictus on Auerbach, the vinyl single The Bad Luck Bird , was released in May 2010, as well as new editions of the entire studio work of the band.
After an interview that Andrew King had given to the new right magazine Tyr became known , in which the latter complained, among other things, of the loss of the "cultural superiority of the West", Sol Invictus separated from King in June 2011. In the same month they announced the separation from the label and distributor Cold Spring Records.
Texts
Recurring themes in Wakeford's texts were criticism of modernity (particularly its predominant materialism and egalitarianism ) and Christianity . Instead of creating alternative designs, he propagated an elitist, isolationist world renunciation. Titles like In My Garden or The House Above the World are programmatic here . Another issue was the “European heritage”, which Wakeford saw threatened primarily by US consumerism .
Various reviewers have also repeatedly referred to song titles that can be interpreted as references to right-wing thinkers and organizations: Against the Modern World and Amongst the Ruins to the philosopher Julius Evola , Death of the West (= "The Downfall of the West") to the cultural critic Oswald Spengler (to whom a line of text in the Death-in-June song Nothing Changes refers), Long Live Death (= "Viva La Muerte") to the battle cry of the Falangists adopted by the Spanish Foreign Legion . Wakeford admitted to having used Evola for song titles, but did not want them to be understood as a tribute (according to Wakeford in the forum on his website Tursa.com, which has since been deleted).
Philosophers and writers named by Wakeford himself as inspiration or cited in his publications include: a. Friedrich Nietzsche , Albert Camus , TS Eliot , Ezra Pound , JG Ballard and the film director Luis Bunuel . More recent albums also contain more personal and autobiographical texts.
Discography
- Sol Invictus - Against the Modern World (1987)
- Sol Invictus - In the Jaws of the Serpent (1989)
- Sol Invictus - Lex Talionis (1989)
- Sol Invictus / Current 93 / Nurse With Wound - Fields (12 ", 1989)
- Sol Invictus - Sol Veritas Lux (1990)
- Sol Invictus / Current 93 - Abbatoirs of Love (7 ", 1990)
- Sol Invictus - Trees in Winter (1990)
- Sol Invictus - The Killing Tide (1991)
- Sol Invictus - Looking for Europe (7 ", 1992)
- Sol Invictus - See the Dove Fall / Somewhere in Europe (7 ", 1992)
- Sol Invictus - King & Queen (1992)
- Sol Invictus - Let Us Prey (1992)
- Tony Wakeford / Sol Invictus - Above Us the Sun (1994)
- Sol Invictus - The Death of the West (1994)
- Sol Invictus - Black Europe (1994)
- Sol Invictus - In the Rain (1995)
- Tony Wakeford / L'Orchestre Noir / Sol Invictus - On - The World and Everything in It (1996)
- Tony Wakeford - Cupid & Death (1996)
- Sol Invictus - The Blade (1997)
- Sol Invictus - All Things Strange and Rare (1998)
- Sol Invictus - In Europe (1998)
- Sol Invictus - In a Garden Green (1999)
- Sol Invictus - Trieste (2000)
- Sol Invictus - Hill of Crosses (2000)
- Sol Invictus - Eve (7 ", 2000)
- Sol Invictus - Brugge (2001)
- Sol Invictus / Matt Howden / OTWATM / Unveiled - Bringing Light and Darkness (2001)
- Sol Invictus - Thrones (2002)
- Sol Invictus - The Giddy Whirls of Centuries (2003)
- Sol Invictus - The Angel (2004)
- Sol Invictus / Hawthorn / Sieben - Writ in Water (2004)
- Sol Invictus - The Devil's Steed (2005)
- Sol Invictus / Rose Rovine E Amanti / Andrew King - A Mythological Prospect of the Citie of Londinium (2006)
- Sol Invictus - The Bad Luck Bird (7 ", 2010)
- Sol Invictus - The cruelest Month (2011)
- Sol Invictus - Once Upon A Time (2014)
- Sol Invictus - Necropolis (2018)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Evening of Light: Interview with Tony Wakeford and Reeve Malka by Peter Webb
- ↑ Karl Blake comments on whomakesthenazis.com
- ↑ Prophecy Productions news report on the conclusion of the contract , (accessed July 1, 2010)
- ↑ a b Statement by the band on facebook.com. The explanatory sentence The rest of the band have felt uncomfortable regarding some of his outside endeavors and pronouncements, which we were not previously aware of and which have recently come to light. was taken off the network after a few days.
- ↑ Andrew King and "Traditionalism" on whomakesthenazis.com
- ^ Sol Invictus - Necropolis (2018) . 2018.