Gangar just released their heaviest single yet!

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The second single from Gangar's long-awaited debut album is out today! "Synnjavinden" is the result of bassist Jonas Thrana Jensen´s musical background rooted in rock, wanting to write a rock-hard metal song. Perhaps the band's heaviest song to date, with guitar and bass in drop D and baritone sax throughout. One of the newer songs Gangar has arranged, which they first played live last autumn. The arrangement was based on a "djent" riff that bassist Jonas wrote, because he thought the beat covered a darker side of Gangar. Bassist Jonas Thrana Jensen says:

- I think it was fun to explore a kind and almost humming melody with a hard, metal-inspired comp underneath.

The song playfully moves between contrasting "joyful" moods over a full band that come with this bouncy djent riff, to heavy half-hours with washes of crash cymbals in true heavy-metal spirit. A fun challenge in the writing process of the song was to manage to keep the somewhat "cliché" metal sound, but to adapt somewhat odd time signatures (at least from a conventional-rock-and-metal starting point).

- I listened to several hours of tape with recordings of fiddler Sivert Åsebø, and when I had finished there were two traditional that I wantet to put five exclamation points behind. When I listened to them again, I found out that both were recordings of the same band, namely Synnjavinden. This is the only time I have actually chosen to go in and change the melody, or more specifically, the timing. It's something I'd rather avoid doing, but in this case the melody was so out of tune that I had to remove some beats and notes so that it would be possible to play the melody with the band.

Gangar has used the archived recording of Sivert Åsebø from Folkestad in Norway, and the introduction Åsebø gives of the traditional melody on the recording has been included in the middle part of the song. Gangar would like to thank Anna Gjendem and the archive in Møre og Romsdal, who gave them access to these wonderful recordings.

Although Gangar is a completely fresh folk music project, they have already become a major exporter of Norwegian folk music abroad. They are the only Norwegian artist with an official showcase at Folk Alliance International, in addition to having played at the Viljandi Folk Music Festival in Estonia, the Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival in Groningen, the Netherlands, and at Delsbostämman in Sweden.

2023 will not be less active. Gangar had an official showcase at Folk Alliance International in Kansas City, USA. They just played at the big festival Rudolstadt in Germany, the Førdefestivalen, and the Kaustinen Folk Festival in Finland, and will play more concerts and festivals in Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Hungary in 2023.

The debut album "Stubb" will be released on Heilo Records on 29/09/2023.