Das Seelenbrechen
| Das Seelenbrechen | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Ihsahn | ||||
| Released | 21 October 2013 | |||
| Recorded | Mnemosyne Studio | |||
| Genre | Progressive metal, dark ambient | |||
| Length | 49:06 | |||
| Label | Candlelight / Mnemosyne | |||
| Producer | Ihsahn | |||
| Ihsahn chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| About.com |   |
| Blabbermouth | 8.5/10 |
| Decibel | 7/10 |
| Exclaim! | 8/10 |
| MetalSucks |  |
| What Culture | |
Das Seelenbrechen is the fifth studio solo album by Emperor frontman Ihsahn. Released on 21 October 2013, the album was described by Ihsahn as a "deliberate sidestep" that used improvisation as the basis for his most diverse recording to date, which Decibel Magazine described as "surprising and strangely satisfying".
Ihsahn described Das Seelenbrechen as a "deliberate sidestep" from his previous solo albums, which was designed "to avoid falling into any kind of formula". He suggested that the album was influenced by the musical experimentation of Diamanda Galas and Scott Walker, for whom he admitted "I've always admired musicians that dive into it like that and express something right there and then without filter, or polishing it too much".
Describing the album as intentionally "out of his comfort zone", it relied upon improvisation to create a "more spontaneous and intuitive" feeling. The result of this spontaneity was that he felt that he could express himself without his "own ego" or "critical goblin" haunting his creativity. This also enabled him to dispose of his predilection for "masking" the personal subject matter of his lyrics with "grandiose images". Ihsahn speculated that
I think as I wrote more spontaneously it came from a more personal state of mind. Some one who is smarter than me said "All art is created from a place between megalomania and self loathing." It's a roller coaster between the two and it hasn't gotten any easier.
Suggesting that he was "deliberate about this [album] not being...easily accessible", Ihsahn contrasted Das Seelenbrechen with his previous albums, for which he "sometimes...got caught up in the technicalities of things", whereas, on Das Seelenbrechen, he consciously let go of that level of control:
this time I had to remind myself what it's all about, the energy and the atmosphere you want to express. In the controlled way of doing albums, it leaves very little room for those kind of magic accidents to happen. So for this new album, I just wanted to sacrifice all of the control and the "filter" in the hope that a more open-ended approach would leave more room for possibilities of magical things to happen.
This resulted in a more diverse album than Ihsahn's previous solo recordings. For Ihsahn, this improvisation enabled him to "break the pattern of the typical metal albums that have one set of basic arrangements for the whole album...I wanted each song to grow out of itself and just become the instrument and arrangement that I felt each song needed, regardless of how it would all fit together, just trying to trust that the overhanging general vibe would still be present". Ihsahn admitted that, after hearing the album in post-production, he thought that it was "totally a commercial suicide", although he remarked that the album's favorable reception left him "positively surprised".
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Wikipedia