Norway’s HELHEIM, well known for incorporating Norse history into their music and performances, have taken it a step further in a live collaboration with VJ Gjert, which will see the band perform each song of their set to a backdrop of Norse themed videos during their upcoming tour of the UK. Each video relates in some way to the text of the particular song, and are integrated in such a way that they become not only a backdrop, but also the lighting and special effects.

Helheim’s drummer HRYMR explains it in this way: “VJ’ing is not as widely known as DJ’ing, and Gjert is one of the early pioneers from the Bergen scene. VJs use live video as opposed to using pre processed video from a computer or DVD, and since the videos are mixed live, no two shows are ever likely to be exactly the same. We launched our live collaboration with VJ Gjert at our show at the Landmark Hall in Bergen, and tried it out during our Norwegian and European tours, and it proved to be a very interesting experience both for the band and the audience. We are looking forward to bringing the concept with us on our UK tour. Gjert will accompany us, together with our projectors and computers for the videos, and it will be interesting to see audience reaction. UK fans are always very receptive to new and interesting ideas, and are happy to let you know what they think.

"But it’s very important to stress that we are definitely not aiming to turn Helheim performances into something over-technological, as is often the danger with this sort of thing. Our Norse heritage has always been at the root of Helheim’s work, and we see this very much as a tool that will allow us to enhance our music and lyrics with images that relate to the themes we explore, rather than just being a “light show” per se. Hopefully it will draw the audiences further into our world and let them experience it on several levels”.

Dates for the UK tour, together with Dark Essence Records label-mates TAAKE and VULTURE INDUSTRIES are as follows:

March

3 - Manchester - Music Box
4 - Dublin - Fibber Magees
5 - Cork - An Cruiscin Lan
6 – Glasgow - Ivory Blacks
7 - London - Camden Underworld

Helheim have also been confirmed to play at the Inferno Festival in Oslo on the Rockefeller stage at 19:45 on Saturday, April 11th.

The video below is part of the direct output from the band’s VJ show at the Landmark Hall, Bergen, and uses the three projectors that run VJ GJERT’s videos as the only active light sources on stage. The song is 'Svart Seid' from Helheim’s Kaoskult album. More details about Helheim can be found on the band’s MySpace page at www.myspace.com/helheimnorway.