The Making Of… ‘Vikings & Celts — Warriors of The Ancient North’
The latest release from Gothic Storm takes us back to an ancient time of warriors and rival tribes. Featuring ancient live instruments, modern power and emotional strings. We spoke to composers Christoph Allerstorfer and Ioannis Gutevas about how they approached the brief and conjured up these ancient characters.
How did you translate the idea of ancient warriors into musical themes? Was it purely your imagination or did you take inspiration from previous cinematic scenes?
CA: I went with very raw and aggressive sounds. I imagined warriors preparing for a raid. The piece is starting off in a kind of spiritual way, but changes in the second half for some violent action.
IG: It was actually a little bit of both. I am a huge fan of Viking lore, series, movies, and games, so I combined all those experiences and my imagination to make my own version of a Viking trailer track.
How did the historical aspect of the brief affect your instrumentation and melodic choices?
CA: I avoided using anything sounding too polished and kept the melodies and hooks simple, but played very aggressively.
IG: A lot. I love the lore of Vikings, and for this track, I chose the big war drums, the primitive and almost ritualistic side of melodies, and the general feel of the track was more on the aggressive side.
This album features aggressive, fantastical and even traditional musical themes. What kind of theme did you opt for in your track(s) and why?
CA: For my piece I played a simple motif on my viola in the low range, and put a lot of force on the bow to almost make it distort right from the instrument itself. The short phrase is repeated with some variations as it builds. The low male shouts also played a key role during the writing process and I was very pleased with the live recordings of the men’s choir!
IG: One of my favourite parts of the Viking lore is those of the Berserker-warriors. Those ritualistic warriors who fought in a trance-like fury were nearly unstoppable and feared by the enemy. So for this track, I chose a more aggressive and fantastical musical theme in order to depict the Berserkers and the Vikings in battle as much as I could.
Drums and percussion were key to evoking the era whilst adding power and drama. How did you approach this? Did you pay close attention to particular rhythms and what types of percussion did you use?
CA: I have quite a few percussion instruments in my studio and I used big frame drums with animal felt skins. They don’t have that high frequency attack, but a lot of raw energy.
In regard to rhythm, I kept it fairly simple but went with a 5/4 time signature. The rhythm is starting off with a 3/2 division but changes to 2/3 later on.
IG: Percussion is very important to every track. For this one, I tried to find a balance between ethnic ensemble percussion and some more modern hits. I wanted to keep the aggressive part from the modern hits but also not lose the feel of the “old Norse” part so the use of ethnic percussion was mandatory.
The rhythm is also essential. I wanted a ritualistic, battle-like rhythm throughout the track to convey the feel of Vikings on the battlefield.
‘Vikings & Celts — Warriors of The Ancient North’ is available now for industry use, with a full public release coming soon.
