Kati Ran Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Items

In April 2025, Dark Nordic Pagan Folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Kati Rán celebrates the ten-year anniversary of her debut album LYS (meaning “light” in Norwegian) with a brand-new physical release, available through Svart Records.

The 2025 Anniversary Edition of LYS features the album’s ten original songs and the acoustic bonus track “Vinda” featuring Helisir.

In 2015, LYS was recorded, produced, and released by Kati Rán and producer Christopher Juul (Heilung) at the renowned Lava Studios in Denmark. Together, they shaped, recorded, and performed all the tracks, bringing Kati Rán’s inner world, voice, and historical instrumentation to life. LYS contains ten original tracks performed in Norwegian, English, German, and Old Norse, including the hit song “Suurin,” featuring Kai Uwe Faust and Maria Franz of the Danish act Heilung.

Svart Records is re-releasing LYS in its very first vinyl format for listeners and collectors of the Nordic & Dark Folk music genre, along with a digipak CD format. All editions include updated artwork, a booklet with original lyrics and English translations, and the bonus track “Vinda Acoustic.”

As a testament to her passion for music and her determination to stay true to her vision, Kati Rán originally released LYS in 2015 as a solo artist after her folk band L.E.A.F dissolved over artistic differences. During this transition to a solo career, Christopher Juul provided his immersive audio production expertise, which continues to shape the Nordic folk genre today through various projects and bands. The magic of their collaboration is evident in the LYS album, as well as in Kati Rán’s singles “Blodbylgje” and “Unnr Mindbeach,” which were featured on her latest album, Sála, in 2024. Since its original release, LYS has sold out all physical editions, garnered over 10 million streams across music platforms, and is widely considered a genre-defining record in Nordic Dark Folk.

LYS impresses not only with its sound but also through its collaborations with various artists and bands. These include Oliver S. Tyr of the German pagan folk act Faun, Kai Uwe Faust’s signature throat vocalizations on “Suurin,” a duet with Maria Franz (Heilung, Euzen) on “Vinda,” soothing harmonizing vocals by drummer Kristian Uhre (Euzen) on “Sol,” and instrumental contributions from Kati Rán’s former bandmates in L.E.A.F. The album also features Rán’s first duet recordings with Heilung’s Kai Uwe Faust on the opening track “Flamme.”

LYS was originally crowdfunded by listeners and supporters of Kati Rán’s dark pagan folk band L.E.A.F and her solo musical journey. Several international artists contributed campaign support videos, helping to make her first album an international success.

The 2025 anniversary edition of LYS offers an exclusive vinyl print with a bonus track, alongside other formats available through Kati Rán’s label, Svart Records. This release is a must-have for music collectors and listeners worldwide. The LYS 2025 Anniversary Album will be released in April 2025, with pre-sales starting on January 24, 2025, to meet the demand from fans of Kati Rán and Heilung.

In April 2025, Dark Nordic Pagan Folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Kati Rán celebrates the ten-year anniversary of her debut album LYS (meaning “light” in Norwegian) with a brand-new physical release, available through Svart Records.

The 2025 Anniversary Edition of LYS features the album’s ten original songs and the acoustic bonus track “Vinda” featuring Helisir.

In 2015, LYS was recorded, produced, and released by Kati Rán and producer Christopher Juul (Heilung) at the renowned Lava Studios in Denmark. Together, they shaped, recorded, and performed all the tracks, bringing Kati Rán’s inner world, voice, and historical instrumentation to life. LYS contains ten original tracks performed in Norwegian, English, German, and Old Norse, including the hit song “Suurin,” featuring Kai Uwe Faust and Maria Franz of the Danish act Heilung.

Svart Records is re-releasing LYS in its very first vinyl format for listeners and collectors of the Nordic & Dark Folk music genre, along with a digipak CD format. All editions include updated artwork, a booklet with original lyrics and English translations, and the bonus track “Vinda Acoustic.”

As a testament to her passion for music and her determination to stay true to her vision, Kati Rán originally released LYS in 2015 as a solo artist after her folk band L.E.A.F dissolved over artistic differences. During this transition to a solo career, Christopher Juul provided his immersive audio production expertise, which continues to shape the Nordic folk genre today through various projects and bands. The magic of their collaboration is evident in the LYS album, as well as in Kati Rán’s singles “Blodbylgje” and “Unnr Mindbeach,” which were featured on her latest album, Sála, in 2024. Since its original release, LYS has sold out all physical editions, garnered over 10 million streams across music platforms, and is widely considered a genre-defining record in Nordic Dark Folk.

LYS impresses not only with its sound but also through its collaborations with various artists and bands. These include Oliver S. Tyr of the German pagan folk act Faun, Kai Uwe Faust’s signature throat vocalizations on “Suurin,” a duet with Maria Franz (Heilung, Euzen) on “Vinda,” soothing harmonizing vocals by drummer Kristian Uhre (Euzen) on “Sol,” and instrumental contributions from Kati Rán’s former bandmates in L.E.A.F. The album also features Rán’s first duet recordings with Heilung’s Kai Uwe Faust on the opening track “Flamme.”

LYS was originally crowdfunded by listeners and supporters of Kati Rán’s dark pagan folk band L.E.A.F and her solo musical journey. Several international artists contributed campaign support videos, helping to make her first album an international success.

The 2025 anniversary edition of LYS offers an exclusive vinyl print with a bonus track, alongside other formats available through Kati Rán’s label, Svart Records. This release is a must-have for music collectors and listeners worldwide. The LYS 2025 Anniversary Album will be released in April 2025, with pre-sales starting on January 24, 2025, to meet the demand from fans of Kati Rán and Heilung.

Svart Records are proud to release the long-awaited full length album "sála" by Kati Rán in May 2024

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “sála”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Named after the Old Norse word for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’, “sála” is an act of ‘soul retrieval’, the shamanic art of trauma recovery, be it illness, death, heartbreak or loss, and the reintegration of a splintered self. Across its 13, wide-ranging, elegantly unfolding tracks, the album is an embodiment of different feminine voices and perspectives – from the Norse nine daughters of the sea, or ‘billow maidens’, through various historical and fictional figures to the late-night voices we hear in our most liminal states – all with tales to tell, riddles to solve, challenges to be accepted and guidance to offer. It’s a multiplicity that, like the ocean itself, belongs to a vast, restless dynamic: a matrix of mysteries, unfathomable depths and ever-shifting currents, accumulating into an elemental, regenerative source of power.

Recorded in a barn in Húsafell, Iceland – home to glacier ice caves and a rare lava stone marimba rediscovered for the track “Stone Pillars” – as well as Finland, Norway and at home in Kati’s native Netherlands, “sála” is as much chronicle of Kati’s own perspective-shifting recording process as it as a pilgrimage through different viewpoints and internal states. That itinerate urge is also reflected in the use of different languages, ranging across Norwegian, Old Norse, Icelandic, and, for the first time, English, her combination of ancient texts, historical reimagining’s and unguarded personal reflection backed up by deep research into the most resonant recesses of Nordic lore.

Spun throughout every thread of “sála” is a sense of communion - with the power of stories to offer moral guidance and the thrill of the unknown; with the element of water, recreated across the album both in field recordings and the agelessly organic nature of the music itself; with the archetypes whose qualities we are called upon to embody at our most critical moments; and with the internal hidden realms forever whispering at us from the far edges of our consciousness.

Appropriately, it’s a collaborative venture too. As well as working closely together with Finnish producer Jaani Peuhu, there are contributions from across the musical spectrum, including extreme metal vocalist extraordinaire Gaahl, the Icelandic female choir Umbra Ensemble, renowned Norwegian jazz musician Karl Seglem, Björk and Brian Eno contrabassist Borgar Magnason, members of pagan folk acts Völuspá, Gealdýr, Heilung and Theodor Bastard and even Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris on vocals.

For all the many sources “sála” draws from, the result is a singular, intimately transformative rite of passage, and a retuning of the heart to the reverent continuity of the sacred. It will take you from the opening title track’s chest-pounding rhythmic pulse emerging from a traditional Norwegian bukkehorn (recorded by Karl Seglem), a galloping horse-rider and Kati’s glacial, velveteen chant, through “Kólga’s” recounting of female persecution through the ages borne on the most gossamer-light yet unbreakable of timbres and “Stone Pillar’s” gently percolating, deep wells of abandonment and incantations to recovery. “sála” closes with the track “Sátta” - Old Norse for ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ – ending the album as it began with the bukkehorn, as it weaves rich drones and experience-stamped poems and prayers, Kati’s vocals the most sensitively tuned of emotional barometers. An album made in dedication, and in thrall to, its own sense of destiny, “sála” is, as all quests must ultimately be, a homecoming.

Album introduction written by Jonathan Selzer.

Svart Records are proud to release the long-awaited full length album "sála" by Kati Rán in May 2024

If the most profound treasures are often the most deeply buried, the journey to uncover them is vital process of discovery. Five years after the 15-minute single “Blodbylgje” signaled the birth of a new, more primordial, and immersive vision after the dissolution of her band L.E.A.F., Nordic dark folk artist Kati Rán has expanded on its oceanic theme for her long-awaited full-length album, “sála”. Embarking on a far-reaching musical and personal travelogue, it’s a reawakening of both the feminine narratives submerged and fragmented within Norse mythology, and the enduring, healing powers held within.

Named after the Old Norse word for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’, “sála” is an act of ‘soul retrieval’, the shamanic art of trauma recovery, be it illness, death, heartbreak or loss, and the reintegration of a splintered self. Across its 13, wide-ranging, elegantly unfolding tracks, the album is an embodiment of different feminine voices and perspectives – from the Norse nine daughters of the sea, or ‘billow maidens’, through various historical and fictional figures to the late-night voices we hear in our most liminal states – all with tales to tell, riddles to solve, challenges to be accepted and guidance to offer. It’s a multiplicity that, like the ocean itself, belongs to a vast, restless dynamic: a matrix of mysteries, unfathomable depths and ever-shifting currents, accumulating into an elemental, regenerative source of power.

Recorded in a barn in Húsafell, Iceland – home to glacier ice caves and a rare lava stone marimba rediscovered for the track “Stone Pillars” – as well as Finland, Norway and at home in Kati’s native Netherlands, “sála” is as much chronicle of Kati’s own perspective-shifting recording process as it as a pilgrimage through different viewpoints and internal states. That itinerate urge is also reflected in the use of different languages, ranging across Norwegian, Old Norse, Icelandic, and, for the first time, English, her combination of ancient texts, historical reimagining’s and unguarded personal reflection backed up by deep research into the most resonant recesses of Nordic lore.

Spun throughout every thread of “sála” is a sense of communion - with the power of stories to offer moral guidance and the thrill of the unknown; with the element of water, recreated across the album both in field recordings and the agelessly organic nature of the music itself; with the archetypes whose qualities we are called upon to embody at our most critical moments; and with the internal hidden realms forever whispering at us from the far edges of our consciousness.

Appropriately, it’s a collaborative venture too. As well as working closely together with Finnish producer Jaani Peuhu, there are contributions from across the musical spectrum, including extreme metal vocalist extraordinaire Gaahl, the Icelandic female choir Umbra Ensemble, renowned Norwegian jazz musician Karl Seglem, Björk and Brian Eno contrabassist Borgar Magnason, members of pagan folk acts Völuspá, Gealdýr, Heilung and Theodor Bastard and even Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris on vocals.

For all the many sources “sála” draws from, the result is a singular, intimately transformative rite of passage, and a retuning of the heart to the reverent continuity of the sacred. It will take you from the opening title track’s chest-pounding rhythmic pulse emerging from a traditional Norwegian bukkehorn (recorded by Karl Seglem), a galloping horse-rider and Kati’s glacial, velveteen chant, through “Kólga’s” recounting of female persecution through the ages borne on the most gossamer-light yet unbreakable of timbres and “Stone Pillar’s” gently percolating, deep wells of abandonment and incantations to recovery. “sála” closes with the track “Sátta” - Old Norse for ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ – ending the album as it began with the bukkehorn, as it weaves rich drones and experience-stamped poems and prayers, Kati’s vocals the most sensitively tuned of emotional barometers. An album made in dedication, and in thrall to, its own sense of destiny, “sála” is, as all quests must ultimately be, a homecoming.

Album introduction written by Jonathan Selzer.