Afargang mastermind and fiddle player Olav L. Mjelva discusses hauntingly transcendental debut 'Andvake'

From penning and producing Hollywood film scores and collaborating with Nordic folk metal titans Wardruna to performing with a prestigious host of traditional folk ensembles, multi-talented Norwegian fiddle player Olav Luksengård Mjelva is certainly no stranger to elevated and compositionally intrepid territories. Yet, it was not until the year 2022 that this exceptionally gifted composer would encounter his most monumental undertaking to date – a darkly magnetic, soundscape-driven entity that sees the seemingly disparate traditions of extreme metal and Nordic folk fused together into the stuff of genre-shattering musical alchemy. Now, mere days away from unleashing debut long-player ‘Andvake’, Mjelva reflects on the making of this hauntingly transcendental masterwork…

“Listening back to the record and reading the lyrics again, I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually have a pretty dark side,” chuckles acclaimed composer and folk musician Olav Luksengård Mjelva on the decidedly lawless and enigmatic creative energies underpinning newly-established folk metal project Afargang. Stemming from its founder's long-standing desire to perform soundscape-led music that draws equally from the stylistically polarising sonic universes of Norwegian folk and extreme metal, the years that followed saw this early vision evolve into increasingly fascinating and wholly unanticipated territories. Having spent the overwhelming majority of his musical career to date scoring soundtracks for a host of Hollywood blockbusters and popular TV shows alongside a lifelong passion for performing traditional Norwegian folk music, Mjelva readily admits to feeling no small amount of nervous trepidation surrounding what was, at the time, completely uncharted territory.

“Throughout this process, I've been very unsure about everything,” the frontman reveals candidly. “Especially with singing the lyrics because it’s also the first album where I'm the lead singer. I've been doing some backing vocals in other projects prior to this, but never singing lead, so I wasn't really sure if it was going to work. But yeah, I've always been very interested in metal and rock, not too much black metal until the last few years. I also played bass in many bands, and I think the idea for this project came after playing with Wardruna. I played fiddle with them for a while and then Einar [Selvik] asked me to join for ‘Skuggsjá’, the album with Wardruna and Enslaved, or Einar and Ivar Bjørnson. And I thought that the mix between the more Nordic Viking sound and the metal was really inspiring, so I thought that maybe sometime I will do something like this, but I just didn’t know where to begin, so I didn't do anything with it for a few years. Then, I think it was during the pandemic, I had a lot of free time and then I thought it was something that I wanted to explore more. So I went to a friend who lives in Hamar in Norway, he has a studio and he's a really good guitarist. Then I had the one track that we recorded and that was released as a single [‘Heim’] in 2022. We tried recording some more tracks, but it just didn't feel right somehow, so I just put it away for a couple more years. Then, I had quite a lot of time last winter in January, February, and then I thought, let's just go for it.”

Guided by his own unparalleled compositional expertise and the inspiring insights of the various prestigious musicians and studio experts involved at pivotal points within this meticulously crafted process, resulting debut ‘Andvake’ is awash with a genre-obliterating wealth of musical trappings and traditions. With its darkly evocative title translating to “restless” or “awakening soul” in English, theirs is a colossal, blackly absorbing amalgam of energies spanning everything from bitingly visceral, frost-stricken extremity to fluidly cascading strings that abound with echoes of a place and time far removed from this earthly plane. And while these two seemingly polarising sonic traditions may reside in dramatically differing stylistic territories, the primal, unbridled intensity of feeling underpinning both traditional Nordic folk and black metal here make for an electrifying pairing.

Of this mesmerising melange of classical and contemporary influences, Olav notes, “Well, there’s definitely something in common between the two styles. In the solo Hardanger fiddle music it’s also a lot about the energy that you can get out of the instrument and you can take so many different turns with the melody, and I think it's a little bit the same in the black metal scene. It's not like you just play a verse and then you play a chorus. It's usually a lot of things in between and it's very interesting. It's a little bit of the same world, I think. Above all else, I really wanted to focus on the sound of the folk instruments, so it's not like there’s many folk melodies on the album. I really like the atmosphere in the strings, and it's a bit more of a haunting sound on the Hardanger fiddle. It's hard to explain, but it just sounds a bit Viking as soon as you play it.”

From ‘Kvile’s’ heady intermingling of gnarly, tautly elongated riffing structures and sombre, weightily reverberating vocal leads through to the sumptuously unfurling swathes of melancholia-steeped fiddle that possess the dusky, labyrinthine passages of ‘Kom Ned’, ‘Andvake’ comprises a sonically immense manifestation of feeling. Across its innumerable, elegantly orchestrated layers of lusciously cascading fretwork, airily flourishing strings and intensely corrosive aggression, meticulous attention to fine detail has evidently proven integral in ensuring the most seamless and sonically absorbing mix possible. And with its uniquely evocative range of exquisitely spectral, atmospheric nuances, the Hardanger fiddle played a pivotal role in channelling precisely the ethereal, intricately layered richness of sound Olav sought to achieve here.

“It's the national instrument of Norway,” he explains, raising the aforementioned, elegant-looking instrument up to the camera for closer inspection. “Well, it looks different of course, but the main thing that makes it sound different is that it's tuned a bit higher than the violin, and it also has sympathetic strings, so it has four or five extra strings under the fingerboard. So you don't play them, but they sing along, so you get more overtones. The traditional music for the Hardanger fiddle is very different from normal fiddle music from the rest of Norway and other Nordic countries. It's a solo instrument and it's not like other fiddle music where you have like an A part and a B part, then the A part and the B part and then just start from the top again. In Hardanger fiddle music it’s usually built up by smaller parts and you can have many variations in each part, and you can go in different circles instead of just going like, ABCD, you can go A/B A/C D. It's very interesting. It's hard to describe... there's just more information in the sound. It's a more dreamy, atmospheric sound than the violin.”

With the resulting, hauntingly ethereal compositions leading its creator into equally evocative thematic territories, the lyric writing process that followed proved to be one of deeply introspective, perhaps even emotionally exposing, proportions. Having consciously eschewed the many painfully well-worn clichés and assorted gimmicks with which folk metal has long been heavily associated with, Olav entered the process from an altogether more authentic and fiercely individualistic standpoint.

“I worked on the lyrics with a friend and we had this idea about making kind of like a Norse Viking theme which just didn’t work out in the end. But the new album ‘Andvake’ means like unresting soul or awakening soul and I think that this describes the whole album very well. A lot of the lyrics are something about physical ill-health or being in a darker place for me, but maybe someone else can find another meaning in it. I honestly don't know where it came from. Of course it’s from my head, but I don't know. Some have said that it's a really melancholic album and I totally agree. So I guess I'm melancholic,” he notes with a wry smile of amusement.

Having achieved a truly remarkable feat in forging this darkly absorbing epic of a debut album, Olav is already eagerly gathering notes and ideas in preparation for Afargang's next creative cycle. Together with additional, more immediate thoughts on how 'Andevake's' transcendental arrangements might translate as a live performance, it’s clear the second half of 2025 is guaranteed to be a tremendously exciting period for its ever-passionate and industrious creator.

“It just feels like a new world that is out there to explore and I just really want to get started on the next album now,” the composer enthuses. “As with anything, I think you live and you learn and it’s definitely like that with this project. The next album will definitely be a little bit different and hopefully even better than the last. We'll see what happens on the next album, but I think I really like the big atmospheric soundscapes where we can stay for a long time and slowly build with lots of small elements. I have started on some new ideas, but I need to sit down for a couple of months. I also definitely want to play live and we have started thinking about it and we’re having a meeting with By Norse [Music] tomorrow to talk a little bit about how it could possibly be done, hopefully next year sometime.”

'Andvake' is out now via By Norse Music

Order your copy of the album HERE