V Premiere “Broadcast From the Shadows” Video From Led Into Exile – Live at Svansberget
Dalarna, Sweden’s V — aka VPathogen, if you’d like something easier for search engines — released their second album, Led Into Exile (review here), in Sept. 2019 through Suicide Records. The video premiering below for that album’s opening track, taken from a series of four to be unveiled over the course of the next couple weeks, has been in the works since before the record actually came out.
Consider that for a second. V — led by guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Andreas Baier (also of Besvärjelsen), with guitarist Jonas Gryth, bassist/vibraphonist Marcus Lindqvist and drummer Daniel Liljekvist — went up to a hilltop, spread a few mats out on pallets, fired up a P.A., their amps and some cameras and taped a full-album performance, before they had to stop playing shows because… well, you know.
As it happens, the exclusion-of-audience fits with Led Into Exile‘s hermittty narrative, going off into the forest and not coming back. Comprised of six songs, the studio version of the album tells the story detailed below of leaving society behind in favor of a self-imposed isolation while the world chooses to destroy itself. Painfully prescient, to a degree, but the songs’ atmospheres bear out the plot as well as the lyrics, and out among nature at dusk as V are with ‘Led Into Exile – Live at Svansberget,’ lit by ritual torches with an effigy of their own moniker behind them, the concept is brought to life with spacious flourish even as the sounds are rawer and heavier-hitting.
I’ve included the full details of the video’s making as told by the band below, as well as the background on Led Into Exile‘s theme, and the stream of the album itself in case you’d like to get caught up. Today is Dec. 1 and the other videos will roll out Dec. 8, Dec. 16 and Dec. 22, respectively.
Go fullscreen, and enjoy:
V, “Broadcast From the Shadows” Live at Svansberget premiere
V on Live at Svansberget:
We discussed doing something out of the ordinary, perhaps a live show in the middle of the forest on a mountain and filming it all. This is back in 2019 and livestreams and recorded live shows were not as common as now during the pandemic, at least not going out of one’s way to make something like this with practically no budget. We live in a pretty desolate part of Sweden where one can easily get lost in the wilderness of the mountains, rivers lakes and forests of the Taiga Belt. This is a huge inspiration for us, probably even more than we like to admit. So driving up a mountain in the old Finngrounds of western Dalecarlia with an old German van filled with: five generators, full backline, P.A., lights, a mobile bar with craft beer on draft, a military tent with a stove and a few good friends and a small camera team takes some balls considering how much that can actually go wrong with the typical Scandinavian weather and so forth.
We managed to record an entire set in one take, except for a few hiccups while starting a few of the songs but we started right back up again. The weather forecast was threatening us with rain and so of course we felt that the pressure was on. We had a huge tarp to cover all the gear in case of that and we actually built a little shed on site for the mixing and lighting desks.
It turned out to be a very magical night and we lit a huge bonfire when the rain finally came after the show.
So what happened to the material one might ask? Since it was recorded in the beginning of May 2019 and now coming out December 2021 in segments, why did it take so long? Well since it was a full-on DIY happening, funds for editors and postproduction was at the mercy of benefactors and they withdrew in the final stages, enter the pandemic it seemed like a hopeless task to fulfill. So it seemed that Led into the wild-live at Svansberget (swanmountain) just wasn’t to be. But with the help of Henrik from Suicide Records and some cutting by Andreas (vocals, guitar – V) it finally came to its right and is now available to be seen by the world.
Led Into Exile is a six song concept album sprung from a short story dealing with the definitive departure from civilisation into the wild Finnmark in Dalecarlia Sweden.
The story deals with the hardships of living in this rough terrain of the outdoors and all the toils that comes with that territory. It also speaks of loss and a strong will to become isolated from an insane world on the brink of destruction. Set to the background of a nihilistic darkness the album paints a picture of isolation with broad misanthropic brushstrokes seasoned with the occult and old folklore tied to the region.
The six songs on led into exile describes what happens to a person who succumbs to the siren song coming from the taiga-belt and how this ultimately leads to the vanishing of this person, never to be seen again.
V are:
Andreas Baier • Vocals, Guitars, Synths
Jonas Gryth • Guitars
Marcus Lindqvist • Bass, Vibraphone
Daniel Liljekvist • Drums and all Percussions
