Indie Folk from Herald K

Originally hailing from Norway and now based in the Austrian city of Vienna, Herald K is a singer-songwriter who’s making a name for himself in the folk music world. Armed with his smooth vocals and acoustic guitar, he crafts beautiful arrangements with vivid storytelling lyricism that transports the listener to peaceful dreamscapes.

Making his debut in 2019, he shared his debut album titled Strange Delights, enlisting the talents of several musicians from the Vienna area such as Stephan Steiner and Katie Kern to bring his nine-track record to life. Earlier this year he shared a new single with “Arethusa”, inspired by the ancient Greek myth of the water nymph of the same name and the lead single of his upcoming album Mythologies.

Bringing us the second single from the forthcoming full-length, Herald K has released his new track “Wandering Aengus”, this time offering a musical rendition of a 1899 William Butler Yeats poem, released via Lindo Records. Linking up with his artist friends Markus Mayerhofer to add pedal steel guitar and Navid Djawadi on the double bass, they set about creating a sonic version worthy of the mysterious lyrical text.

Laying down a stunning folk backdrop with light touches of country textures, Herald K brings out the romantic and reflective sentiments of the poem via his charming and delicate vocal delivery. Capturing allusions to Irish mythology, he paints a scenic picture that stretches out a warming invitation for anyone around the world to venture into the delightful world of the original poem.

Commenting on his new single, the artist shares, “I had liked this poem for a long time. One day I got to hear an old recording of the poet himself reciting his own words, at an exhibition in Dublin. That experience opened up something about the profundity and mystery of that text for me, made it come alive… Some years later I started working on my own musical interpretation of it.”

Adding, “I laid down a basic guitar arrangement and started to figure out how to sing it, applying my own personal expression. At the end, pedal steel and bass was added, and only then did I feel we had something I could be happy with. The fluid, melodic steel guitar, and the subtle bass rhythms provided what the song needed.”

Listen to Wandering Aengus below

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