French label ANTIQ will release “Roi des Forêts - Basoen Jauna” internationally on November 11, a special split featuring three projects connected to the Basque Country on both the Spanish and French sides. Created by ELFFOR, HYVER, and ERROIAK, the eight-track release explores the bear through different eras, narratives, and musical approaches.

The split’s longest piece is ELFFOR’s approximately 20-minute track ‘Urkhal’. The song tells the story of a gigantic white bear that protects a tribe, gradually becoming a legendary figure among its people. As the memory of Urkhal is passed down through generations, so too are the stories of children who claim to have seen the great bear’s breath in the mountains.

An excerpt from ELFFOR’s ‘Urkhal’ has been released via Black Metal Promotion’s YouTube channel.

HYVER explores the bear theme from different periods and perspectives across the split’s four tracks. Combining folk-atmospheric black metal with symphonic elements, the project examines ancestral bear cults on the first track, the continuation of that cult in the world of children through the teddy bear figure on the second, and a real bear killed by a hunter in the Pyrenees in 2004 on the third. ‘Le Trône des Bois’ then creates a meditative dreamscape leading to the Throne of the Woods, a mythological place where bears gather.

ERROIAK takes over the final section of the split. Bringing synth and piano melodies to the forefront of its dungeon-synth-influenced black metal, the project adopts a slower-paced, more nostalgic approach than the preceding sections. ‘Basoen Jauna’, described as ‘The Woodslord’, presents the bear as the true spirit of the forests, while ‘Harpeko Oihua’ turns to a more cryptic narrative in which the bear’s spirit remains in a cave.

The closing track, ‘Azken Ehiza’, follows the trail of a hunter. Its central ambiguity revolves around whether the hunted is the human searching for prey and meeting his fate, or the Bear itself embarking on its Last Hunt.

ERROIAK’s ‘Azken Ehiza’ is now available to stream via ANTIQ’s Bandcamp page.

“Roi des Forêts - Basoen Jauna” is another example of ANTIQ’s approach, which since 2009 has sought to bring music, visual art, video, and physical production together within a single coherent concept. The label focuses particularly on working with French creators and smaller independent structures.

The album features the following eight tracks:

  1. ELFFOR - ‘Urkhal’

  2. HYVER - ‘Culte Ancestral’

  3. HYVER - ‘Le Premier Dieu’

  4. HYVER - ‘Cannelle’

  5. HYVER - ‘Le Trône des Bois’

  6. ERROIAK - ‘Basoen Jauna’

  7. ERROIAK - ‘Harpeko Oihua’

  8. ERROIAK - ‘Azken Ehiza’

ELFFOR is the project of Eöl, based on the Spanish side of the Basque Country. Working across ambient and black metal throughout his career, the musician presents ‘Urkhal’ here as a fiercer black metal piece shaped by an epic atmosphere and long-form build-ups. French multi-instrumentalist HYVER, meanwhile, has been exploring the relationship between synthesizers, keyboards, and guitars through his self-titled solo project since 2023. ERROIAK, connected to the French side of the Basque Country, is the solo project named after the Basque word for “crows” and combines black metal with dungeon synth, with SUMMONING cited as an influence on its musical approach.

antiqrecords.com
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