Today marks the launch of my direct subscription email newsletter Endarkenment: Contemplative Writing on Dark Ambient Music Appreciation. At long last, I can go public with the great news I’ve been keeping under wraps for months: my upcoming (and rare!) long-read interview with the Swedish musical virtuoso and sound designer Ulf Söderberg, who is perhaps
I’m happy to announce that I will soon launch a digital direct subscription email newsletter as a “prelude” to my in-progress book Endarkenment: The Esoteric in Dark Ambient Music and Culture. The newsletter will feature new work, including in-depth interviews with musicians and labels, starting in October. An early preview is already up on the
The Winter Solstice is my favorite holiday. It’s the perfect time to announce that the Hermitage is hatching a plan to move to Sweden! In November, while I was in Sweden, I made a pact with my longtime correspondents and dear friends Birka and Räv Skogsberg to relocate the Hermitage to the beautiful village of
“Encoded in the earth, encrypted in our bodies, and built into temples is a knowledge that wants to live again as music.” ~ Susan Elizabeth Hale, Sacred Space, Sacred Sound: The Acoustic Mysteries of Holy Places “Dark ambient is definitely a big part of my spiritual life…It almost functions as a gate to another reality,
Recently I was interviewed by Sarah Sadie, a former Madison, WI Poet Laureate and a student of Cherry Hill Seminary, for a class on Pagan leadership. With her permission, I am publishing the full-length interview here. Q: Coming across your work and the ideas you present online has helped move me further down my own
Recently I attended a lovely and moving public ritual for Skaði by Ingrid Kincaid, The Rune Woman, held in Portland, OR. About twenty of us were there to pay Her tribute. The beautiful altar featured two enormous raw femur bones, along with evergreen bows, firewood, a bow and arrows, fresh blood, vodka, and more. Attendees
This Friday, October 30, in Portland, Ingrid Kincaid will be hosting “Delving Into the Dark”, a ritual for Móðguðr and Hela. Ingrid and I met in person a few weeks ago, and I agreed to put together a customised dark ambient music playlist for her to use at this ritual. My Chthonic Cathedral Project has
I’m delighted to announce that volume 2 of my series on underrated dark ambient albums has been published at the venerable I Die: You Die. Lots of love and care went into this piece. I hope you enjoy it! I have an ongoing list of albums to recommend for volume 3 in this series. There
In July I will be building and hosting a shrine room for Skaði at Many Gods West, and I would like to invite donations of devotional writing, art, and other materials. Here are a few guidelines. Skaði’s Shrine Room will be assembled in my hotel room as a meditative space designed to facilitate quiet prayer
Today I had the pleasure of serving as a host for a guest at the Hermitage who scheduled a session in the psychomanteum, and asked me for a dark ambient music playlist with a grief and mourning theme. My guest was very happy with the playlist, and I let her know I would make it
