MØRKGRIM is a concept-driven music project where the music and lyrics are inseparable. It’s more like a world built from deeply interconnected ideas that complement the music and give it another dimension.
2.You have your first full length coming out in October, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?
I never really decided on a style before making it. I knew what MØRKGRIM needed to feel like and followed that.
There are very raw and aggressive parts, but also acoustic passages, Folk elements, ritualistic sections and moments where the music becomes almost cinematic. Sometimes those worlds collide quite abruptly, but that is intentional. The album is built as a journey, and journeys don't always move in a straight line.
I wasn't interested in making something polished into one consistent formula. I wanted every part to appear when it was needed.
3.The project started in 1994 but waited until 2026 to release any music, can you tell us a little bit more about the long wait?
In the ’90s MØRKGRIM was a one-man project and I simply didn't have the ability to realise it the way I wanted. I was also playing in other bands, and eventually life and music took me in completely different directions.
I spent many years working as a producer, but MØRKGRIM never completely disappeared from my mind.
Then my son told me I should finally make the album. That was the push that made everything move again.
Looking back, I don't really see those thirty years as waiting anymore. Maybe the project simply needed me to become capable of making the record I had always imagined.
4.You also have experience working with other musical genres, do you feel this has made you a better musician over the year?
Absolutely. I still work heavily in Hip-Hop, and spending years creating completely different kinds of music changes the way you listen.
You learn that a song doesn't care what genre it belongs to. Either something creates a feeling or it doesn't.
I think working across different genres has made me trust my instincts more. I don't approach MØRKGRIM with a set of production rules or think about what belongs to Black Metal and what doesn't. If something strengthens the music and the concept, it belongs there.
5.The lyrics on the new album also cover the occult aspects of Norse Heathenry, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in this topic?
It goes much further than an interest in Heathenry or the occult for me. I was called into the Old Ways when I was a kid, and over the years they became the foundation of how I understand and live my life.
I live by what exists underneath the mythology and symbols: sacrifice, fate, endurance, nature, transformation, magick and the price attached to pursuing something beyond yourself.
Some of that enters the lyrics directly, and some of it is hidden within the imagery, numbers and structure of the album.
I don't really want MØRKGRIM to explain these things to the listener. Explanation can sometimes strip away the very thing that gives them depth. I'd rather open the door and let people decide how far they want to enter.
6.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name ”Morkgrim'?
The name goes all the way back to when I started the project in 1994. MØRKGRIM is a word I created, but there is a meaning behind it. Mørk means dark, while Grim is one of the names associated with Odin.
So to me, MØRKGRIM represents an exploration of the darker side of the Old Ways, the hidden, deeper and sometimes uncomfortable paths within them, the parts that are not always visible on the surface.
After more than thirty years, the name has become inseparable from the world of MØRKGRIM.
7.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
The cover art is an illustration of the landscape of Nordfjord. I really like it because it connects directly to the album title and, to me, it also mirrors the atmosphere and sound of the record.
8.Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding your line up or do you prefer to remain a duo?
The core of MØRKGRIM is Nils and me, and I like it that way.
At the same time I'm absolutely open to other musicians entering the world of MØRKGRIM when the music calls for it. There are already guests on the album — Saga B and Dev Gohil both brought something that I couldn't have created in exactly the same way myself.
So I don't think in terms of building a conventional band with permanent positions that need to be filled. The project should remain free. If someone can genuinely add something to the music, there is room for them.
9.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?
The album isn't out yet, so I think it would be premature for me to talk about some huge worldwide reaction.
What interests me more is whether the people who do connect with it understand that there is something beyond the surface. MØRKGRIM isn't designed to appeal to everyone and I don't really want it to.
I'd rather have a smaller number of people enter deeply into the record than a large number hear it once and move on.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
I don’t like planning the sound. I’d rather let the sound lead me. I already have some new material I’m working on, but I honestly can’t say where it will end up.
The worst thing I could do now would be to decide that MØRKGRIM has found a formula and then start reproducing it.
There are things inside Sǫgur frá Norðfirði that I want to explore much further, but I don’t want to draw the map beforehand. MØRKGRIM should be allowed to evolve naturally.
What I can say is that MØRKGRIM will remain rooted in Black Metal. And the final song of each album will continue to act as a threshold into what comes next. The journey does not end with Sǫgur frá Norðfirði, that concept will continue through future records.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Black Metal obviously had a huge impact on me. I discovered that music when I was very young and many of those albums are still part of my regular listening more than thirty years later. Battles in the North and Pure Holocaust by Immortal are still my favourite albums, along with a few others from that era.
I also listen to rock like early Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Billy Idol, The Ghost Wolves and Oasis; Hip-Hop like Lil Wayne, Nas and Wu-Tang Clan and as well as some reggae.
I don't think influence means hearing another artist and consciously borrowing something from them. Sometimes a piece of music simply changes the way you understand sound, atmosphere or emotion, and that stays somewhere inside you. But honestly, I don't listen to a huge amount of music outside of some of these artists and my own work.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
What endures beyond the last word and begins where the deaf mistake silence for the end of the road?
Thank you for the interview and I hope you enjoy the album.
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