Interview: Nortfalke

Date: 29/11/2025

Place: Trondheim, Norway

Since first releasing music under this name almost a decade ago, Nortfalke has managed to profile himself as one of the finest purveyors of dungeon synth out there. In fact, he's among the artists who got me hooked on the genre in the first place, owing to his reverence for atmosphere above all and his willingness to go beyond the habitual restrictions of the genre in the pursuit of true aural storytelling, with his impressive live performance in Trondheim back in 2023 only making my admiration for the project grow. This relatively reclusive Dutch artist and multi-instrumentalist is not easy to catch in person, so when I learned that he'd be visiting the frozen wastes of central Norway again for Blåsvart Aften's 17th edition, I knew I couldn't miss the opportunity to sit down for a conversation and see what's being conjured in the flatlands of northern Netherlands.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I started off the conversation by going back to the beginning, namely Nortfalke's long-lasting musical career before dungeon synth came to the forefront, including his involvement in various Dutch black metal bands.

I actually started playing music when I was around 15 years old. Like several of my peers at the time, I was completely fascinated with extreme forms of metal, particularly black metal, although I occasionally also dabbled with doom metal and similar. It was in my second band (although you could realistically call it my first real band) that I officially took the role of playing keyboards. Back then, a lot of attention was being given to intros, and that's what got me into the more ambient side of things. The first Nortfalke demo, if you want to call it that because the project was still unnamed at the time and the demo never officially released, dates from this time, around 1998. Needless to say, it was extremely primitive, as I used a tape recorder without an input, but with a small microphone instead. So what I was doing is I'd record with the built-in recorder of the synthesizer - only up to two minutes, mind you, since that was its memory capacity - and then I had to play the second part live over that, recording it all with the tape recorder's microphone. That's it, that was the demo.

Talk about an old-school, analogue approach.

The demo can actually be found on YouTube for those into historical artefacts. At some point, I realised that I needed more than two layers of sound to convey my vision, so I eventually bought my first four-track, and that really unlocked the possibilities for me. I started composing a lot of winter-inspired synth stuff, but I never released anything.

I was curious if this explains the relatively prolific nature of Nortfalke's discography - the fact that he might have been sitting on so much unreleased material for years.

To this day, I still have tonnes of unreleased material. My problem is that I have always really enjoyed the creative part of things, where I get to compose and record, but the last part of getting something released was boring me to death, with the contracts, record labels, layouts and all that stuff. It wasn't until the black metal projects that I participated in started releasing things more seriously that I understood the importance of getting your music out to the world, with the proper artwork, proper record label and overall proper vision for the listener to enjoy. That made me refocus on my own solo material and consider releasing it for the first time. This coincided with my growing interest in the early Berlin school, such as Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream etc., so I got the idea of merging this old-school Mortiis kind of sound that I had already been doing with these new influences. That's when the Nortfalke concept got fleshed out at last.

This was a great lead-in to my next question, namely the seemingly heterogeneous nature of Nortfalke's work. No two releases of his sound the same, and yet all of them carry this signature Nortfalke atmosphere.

The first Nortfalke album is unquestioningly old-school dungeon synth, whereas on the second one I was already trying to integrate more foreign influences as explained before, even if it retains a very primitive atmosphere, basically looping the same sound with a couple of twists here and there with analogue effects and synthesizers. This first attempt to create a sound truly of my own is what opened the gates to more experimentation. That also meant the purchase of more instruments, and not only synthesizers - although by this point I had a lot of those too - but also piano, xylophone, harmonium and more. I'm not sure if getting interested in more varied instruments drove the expansion of my musical scope, or the other way round; however, you can tell what I'm currently into by listening to the prevalent sound of any release. If you detect more Berlin sound influences, I'm probably in my analogue synth phase, whereas if you hear something more ambient and spacey, I'm probably in a more digital mood, likely working a lot with my Korg Wavestation. Lately I've been hugely into Casio synthesizers and instruments, I think I've got a dozen of them by now. In fact, I've even been thinking about composing an entire album using nothing but Casios. I'm intrigued by the difference in sound it would make versus my current work, which is mostly composed using Korg and Roland synths.

It was pretty obvious from the way Nortfalke was talking about all this that Nortfalke is undoubtedly his main musical focus these days.

To me it certainly is. It could probably partly be attributed to my shifting musical interests as a listener and not just as a musician. I come from a black metal background and I still like it a lot, but lately I find myself listening to it less than ever. If I take a look at the releases I've bought this year, most of them will be acoustic or synth-driven music. Over the decades, I've also realised that I can only take in so much metal before my ears get tired, whereas I can listen to ambient stuff all day long and never get weary. It could also be that I find more depth and atmosphere in electronic music these days, hitting the right spot from the very first notes, which is sadly rarely the case with nowadays black metal. Of course, this is completely personal, and someone might take the exact opposite stance from me. That said, I am still actively involved with other bands: I have the debut album of my solo black metal project Afvallige coming out soon, which is in the vein of early Dodheimsgard, and I'm part of Mortifero, who are also on the bill here in Trondheim tonight. So yes, Nortfalke remains my #1 priority, but it's far from the only one.

With so many bands, projects and musical endeavours, one wonders how Nortfalke balances it all with a day job, family, two kids and everything else going on in his life. There must be a massive willpower behind.

One thing that helps a lot is that I have my own home studio, with all of the equipment needed to record things on my own, whether it's synths, bass, drums, guitars or anything else really. Another trick that I use is to always record what I'm doing, even if it's just rehearsing or improvising; that way, I get to capture any inspiration that comes along. Of course not everything will be good enough to end up on an album, but it's a huge help to not have to think about capturing a particularly good moment or idea - it will be there and available for me to use by default. Naturally, experience and proficiency with instruments are another big plus, as it takes me 1-2 takes to record something that would have taken me 10-20 takes a decade ago. Even with my synth stuff, it doesn't take me long to convert a really good melody I've come up with into a full song.

Many dungeon synth acts are inspired by epic tales, mountains and valleys, faraway places and long-forgotten lands. Nortfalke, however, seems to draw his inspiration from places and stories much closer to home.

I am endlessly fascinated by local folklore from the parts where I live. It's a peculiar section of the Netherlands, because it has not only the usual flatlands associated with the country, but also the North Sea and the islands close to the coast. All of this, together with the ever-present fog, has contributed to a certain mysticism developing in these lands over the centuries. Many ships have sunk around these parts throughout history, so there are lots of stories about ghosts, sea ghosts and monsters, and I felt as if I was bringing this atmosphere to life when I first started playing synthesizers. Another specificity of the region is that it's one of the best parts of the Netherlands for stargazing, especially the islands. That has probably contributed to my equal fascination with the Solar System and beyond.

One can actually hear these two influences in Nortfalke's music: one ancient, folky and steeped in medieval atmosphere, and the other more spacey, cosmic and forward-looking.

Sometimes I even combine the two, such as on Moonjeie. The concept behind that album is the story of a creature who transforms to hunt when the moon is in its strongest form; something like werewolves in the Western tradition, except this creature is less animalistic and more human, not only hunting, but also chasing women and the like. It's all about this ancient power in oneself that gets unlocked by the forces of nature and the cosmos. In fact, the album title itself means Moonhunter in the local dialect, and if you go through all the track titles together, it reads like a short poem of sorts.

That last remark brought me to one interesting peculiarity of Nortfalke, namely that he doesn't only use standard Dutch for his album and track titles, but also the local dialect spoken in Groningen and even some obscure, near-extinct dialects from nearby Frisian islands, which gives his music a real sense of place.

The dialect thing is something I started doing very early on, but sparsely and not as a general rule, as I didn't want it to become a gimmick. The idea came to me very naturally, as I have been visiting Schiermonnikoog all my life - it's one of the five inhabited Dutch islands that we collectively call the Wadden Islands, and also the smallest one. My parents used to have a house there, so I partly grew up there and interacted with the locals, the elderly among which still spoke their native tongue; today, there are only around 70 people left who speak it. On one of my visits, I asked one of the natives to translate the track titles of my first album to the native tongue, and I was completely amazed by how well it sounded and captured the spirit of the album. The language itself is old, really old, and a weird combination of Scandinavian, Old English, Frisian, Dutch and German. Traditionally, people from this island were seafarers and whale hunters, going all around the North Sea to hunt, so they interacted with all other North Sea nations and brought a lot of those influences home. To a Dutch speaker, this language has a very mystical ring to it. To this day, I still visit the island to just disconnect, hike, watch the sea and enjoy the setting.

As Nortfalke was speaking about this place, I saw the kind of childlike fascination light up in his eyes that all of us who appreciate this music genre will immediately recognise.

There's a lighthouse there that goes around all night, which gives the island an incredible atmosphere, but its primary purpose is to illuminate what is otherwise the darkest part of the Netherlands. There are no cars on the island except for residents, so light pollution is minimal, and the Milky Way and all the stars really come to life when the skies are clear. There are similar places in the East Frisian islands across the border in Germany, which are even smaller and even more frozen in time, to the point where some of them still use horses and wagons because there are no roads. I have huge respect for people who keep these islands inhabited and maintain their traditional way of life and their local dialect. Therefore, when I use their tongue in my work, I see it as a kind of homage.

At this point it became clear to me that Nortfalke sees a higher purpose in his work, beyond it just being a piece of music to be listened to.

One thing that is very personal and very important to me is the context that our lives play within the bigger story, not just of a family, but also of the community. I like to think that my children and their children will one day see my work as a curious part of their father's memory and imprint on the world, whether they can identify with it or not. The same goes for the community - a language only exists as long as it is used, so I'm proud to have been able to contribute to its prolonging, even if that contribution is modest. That's why I think I'll continue to use our local dialect in my future work as well - and I plan to keep creating for a long time - although perhaps not exclusively, because as I already said, it's important to keep things fresh and inspirational, rather than sticking to a specific rule. I find that many in this genre forget the importance of open-mindedness.

This last sentence was a great introduction for what I consider to be the greatest sin of the dungeon synth scene - the fact that too many acts treat it as a mere nostalgia piece, rehashing an old-school sound ad infinitum instead of pushing the genre in new directions, or trying to come up with new concepts.

Honestly, I don't even view my work as purely dungeon synth anymore, even if that's how it first came about. If you treat your music properly, it's only normal to want to experiment at some point. In my case, I've integrated a lot of folk and acoustic instruments, as well as dark ambient and Berlin school elements that we've already talked about. That said, I too have a difficult relationship with the current dungeon synth scene because I find that most artists out there are quite simply not dark enough, and I don't mean just in terms of music, but in the way they treat the genre on the whole. There's too much pop culture influence these days, perhaps due to the music reaching a more mainstream audience that entered it through gaming and similar. I see people making memes about the genre recently, which is only fair because many acts behave as memes. Not that it makes a difference, really, because there's still a lot of old and new material to enjoy: my countrymate Old Tower, old Mortiis, Cimerion, Forlorn Kingdom, old Vond and Fata Morgana, Den Sorte Død... Örnatorpet from Sweden is one of the younger acts that I really enjoy, for example, and we've even become labelmates recently, with Isilya Records releasing one of his side projects together with my album Ys.

Speaking of labels, Nortfalke hasn't had a permanent home since the very beginning, having released his stuff on a variety of domestic and foreign publishers.

This is usually a question of logistics more than anything else. For example, I've worked together a lot with Arjan of Heidens Hart, who released two of my albums: Atmosfeer and Moonjeie, and will be releasing the new one as well. However, that label is very selective about the number and quality of its releases, so Arjan isn't in a position to release a new Nortfalke album every year, whereas I seem to record one annually. Therefore, I've more or less had to cooperate with others over the years, even though for me it's always an honour to release on Heidens Hart. It's the type of label where you don't have a written contract, nor do you need one - a rare occurrence in today's world. I also have my own DIY label that has started work on a couple of splits, so we'll see if I'll do a Nortfalke album that way in the future as well.

The last topic to address was the one that brought us together in the first place - Nortfalke's return to Trondheim for another edition of Blåsvart Aften, after his successful live performance at the same venue two years ago.

I don't play live too much, since I choose whether to make a live appearance not only based on the offer, but also on the venue, the setting, the persons involved etc. This is not the easiest type of music to play live, especially when you're fully on your own, despite what some people may think. However, it's a very rewarding experience, firstly because it's nice to present your music in a different format, and secondly because it's enjoyable to step out of the safety of your little studio, go out there and take some risks. We get old very quickly, and our appreciation for repetition and introspection shouldn't mean that we need to keep life monotonous and boring. You have to make it hard on yourself every now and then, it's good for you.