Nokken and the Grim is a new neofolk band - but to put them under one genre would be considered a grave sin. Soaked in mythological elements and Pagan backgrounds, each member of Nokken and the Grim brings their own unique flair to the end product. Each having their repertoire in different genres - from metal to ambient to folk to blues (of all things), this trio is getting ready to put out their album "Treason to Our Nature". With that being said, we at Brutal Resonance sat down with all three of the band members for an in depth look at their album. Not only that, but we are also proud to premiere their new album which can be streamed directly below with the push of the play button. Read on while you enjoy these primal sounds:





Nøkken + The Grim is new to Brutal Resonance, so I'd like to start off with introductions. I understand there are three of you in the band, Justin Gortva Scheibel or Nøkken, Stephen Ian Savage or Peryton, and Karoline Leal or Ajatar. What are each of your roles in the band and what instrument do you play?





Justin: I'm the lead violinist for the group. On stage, I pull a lot of riffs and improv, trading off solos with Stephen and Karli. But behind-the-scenes, I do the managing and produce a lot of the ideas and story that knits our group together.





Karoline: I play the viola, and basically take charge of rhythm and pulse, like a rhythm guitar. That’s actually kind of what the viola does in the classical world…but then I also originally wanted to be a bassist. So, I guess now I kind of do both?





Stephen: I play clarinet and synths/keyboard. I usually do a lot of behind-the-scenes work to produce the electronics that we play with. In my daily life, I'm a composer and clarinetist, so this is the perfect melding of my two main jams.





Let's talk of origins now. The project started in 2015. Whose idea was it to create Nøkken + The Grim and where did you all meet? Did you guys work well together at first or was it rough getting the project off the ground?

















Official recording for your debut album “Treason to Our Nature” began in 2017 and lasted through 2018. Is this the first piece of music that has been put out by you, or are there other possibly demo pieces roaming the internet somewhere?













I understand that “Treason to Our Nature” was recorded with both live improvisation as well as studio recordings. I imagine that there is some difficulty in shuffling live recordings with studio sessions. How did you manage to pull that off?













There is a wide range of influences on this record from metal, folk, blues, neo-classical, as well as your stunning depictions of the already mentioned Norse and Magyar folklore. How do you blend all these elements together?













It originally was a solo project. I adopted the name Nøkken from the Norwegian myth of a shapeshifting water-horse spirit who played violin. I started wearing a plastic horse mask on stage, and it quickly became my alter-ego. I was thinking that this old, dark creature had stepped out of the cracks of time, brought about by the strife and struggle of people to find meaning and spirituality in this day and age. It evolved organically from there when I asked Stephen and Karli to play. They adopted personas too. To me, it was as if, now that the doorway was open, other spirits were free to come through.We all went to music school together in Cincinnati around 2009, I was doing graduate school at the time. So, I guess we all have been working together for quite a while… we all played in ensembles with each other back then.It was difficult at first to even know how to combine our instruments and playing styles into a cohesive group. There was lots of discussions, differences of opinion, and frustrating moments. When we first started working on "Treason to Our Nature", Justin and I disagreed on what directions to take the sound, and ultimately that conflict allowed us to explore new, exciting territory.As a group this is the first major release we’ve had. Each of us has collaborated on different projects in the past, but mostly local stuff to Austin. There are some improvised works floating around on our YouTube and Soundcloud pages, and I’ve done this crazy-ass violin piece Stephen wrote called “Overhead Freeway” which is available as a single on our Bandcamp.Yeah, I'm sooooo sorry for how hard that piece is to play, but you did ask for a crazy, ridiculously amazing solo piece, so what could I do!?It was tricky for sure…when we play live, we play with prerecorded electronics on some songs. For those, we isolated our acoustic sound and then re-incorporated it into more studio electronics, then edited it, mixed it and so on. Others songs are completely improvised, so those were much easier, just simple mixing.The hardest thing was balance and blending so that the the live and studio elements didn't feel out of place. We also have a fantastic audio engineer here in Austin, Evan Kleinecke of 5th Street Studios, who did the mastering. He's a sonic magician!I mean, I honestly didn’t grow up listening to classical, I was basically raised on metal and folk music by my parents. I also like to force other people to listen to my music, so it kind of follows that it would leak into whatever we’re doing…we all listen to a wide variety of music and come from a variety of musical backgrounds. For me at least, it’s not necessarily a conscious decision.For me it was just fun to smash genres up and see what happens. Especially on "Blue Ritual," I started with an electro/rock beat and added funky Jazz chords and scales just to see what kind of sounds and affects we could get out of it.It’s all about seeing music from this primal, animal mindset. I try to experience and play without imposing my own preconceptions. After all, we play creatures that are very nonhuman, so they wouldn’t care for or even maybe understand how human music and genres work. To them, music might be another thing entirely. For me personally, I enter into a sort of deep trance where I feel not human when I am performing on stage.