Maunah released Hjarta on 18 September through Prophecy Productions. Six songs, and no lyrics in any language: the voice follows the shape of speech without ever forming words, and is built out of tone, rhythm and whatever the feeling requires.
The title means heart. The Danes play Scandinavian doom with Nordic folk and a modern edge, arranged with enough space in it that the quiet passages are as long as the loud ones. “Maunah is the sound of despair and open skies,” they say. “Maunah is leaves crunching underfoot, the cold of the forest floor seeping through the soles. And Maunah is the warmth of the sun on the face and oxygen filling the lungs.”
It is a first album but not a first band for anyone in it. Søren Sol Koldsen-Zederkof has toured with the Nordic folk group Krauka and puts out music as LOS, and Mads Medom Papsø Laursen has played with Ironguard and Encyrcle. They played Prophecy Fest twice, in the Balve cave in Germany, before the record existed. The Heimaland EP came first.