OVERVIEW

 From the deep woods now emerges Birna, Wardruna’s sixth studio album, scheduled for January 24, 2025 through Sony Music and By Norse Music. Through his never resting dialogue with nature, main composer Einar Selvik has been searching for the voice of the bear.  

 

Birna – the she-bear in Old Norse – is a work of art dedicated to the warden of the forest, nature’s caretaker, and her battles here on earth. Slowly driven out of her habitat by modern day societies, she has entered a stage of permanent hibernation. As a result, the forest is gradually dying, longing for its pulse and heart – its shepherd. Birna calls for her return. The bear frequently figures in the oldest myths of mankind in the northern hemisphere, and many indigenous people still regard this animal as a totem, honouring it with rites and songs. It was once our respected guardian, our guide to edible plants and berries, a creature we both feared and admired. 

 

Instruments and wisdom from ancient times, coupled with modern day soundscapes and recorded sounds of nature, provide a rare opportunity to tell us something valuable about ourselves. It works as a reminder that we are part of nature, not above it, and it offers a way of remembering, not for memory’s own sake, but to gain both new and forgotten insights. “Where the previous album Kvitravn was a step conceptually from the past to the present, Birna even more so seeks to address the here and now and the way forward,” states Einar Selvik. Birna was written and recorded between 2021 and 2024.