After dedicating 2020 almost entirely to reissues, Dutch black metal cornerstone Heidens Hart is back with two major new releases -- Sagenland's Oale Groond (see T35) and Kjeld's Ôfstân (out today, March 5 - review forthcoming). Since The Black Metal Guy spends a lot of time geeking out about the Dutch scene, and this label in particular, he figured he'd take the opportunity to speak with founder and sole operator Arjan (also 1/2 of Sagenland).

Over the course of the conversation, Arjan touches on many key aspects of his aesthetic, from folk-inspired minimalism and ineffable yearning, to the individual, imaginative transformation of canonical sounds. One gets the sense of a man who simply happens to live in the present -- a man for whom trends are as far away as the nearest city, and the modern world is, at most, an inconvenience.

00:00 - Introduction

04:05 - "It's more rewarding to write a flowing song" - Folkish melody vs. Norsecore / minimalism and drone / songwriting for Sagenland

19:26 - "It can be 50 years ago or 5000 years ago" - melancholy and nostalgia / barrows and dolmens

24:54 - One country, two sounds - rural, regional Dutch BM vs. the big city metal scene

34:58 - "Independent since the beginning" - roots of Heidens Hart and the Dutch scene in the late 90s

44:50 - "Maniacal and crazy" - an introduction to Blackdeath, the Satanic Russian black sheep of the HH roster

50:58 - Interlude - Blackdeath, “Hass aus dem Himmel” fr. Phantasmhassmagorie (HH2019). Followed by more on Blackdeath and alternate histories of black metal.



01:04:20 - "Without being a ______ clone" - introduction to the German Medieval BM of Pest, the Anglo-Saxon neofolk of Wolcensmen, and other recent HH releases. This section gives a good sense of Arjan's overall taste in music.



01:23:06 - "It sounds.... bothered." - history of WROK, Dutch grand masters of gorked basement goblin BM.



01:31:46 - Outro - Wojnar - end of “Part one - Część pierwsza eposu,” fr. Kiedy duch wojny nade mną powstanie  (HH reissue, 2019; Slava Productions, 1999)

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