First release

So Lord Bassington-Bassington's life revolves (hah!) around records these days. Here is Café Grössenwahn Grammophon's first release, just arrived from the printers.

More information to follow, stay tuned!

The (re)birth of a Record Label

"Café Grössenwahn" – "Café Megalomania". Such was the nickname of several cafés in Central Europe at the end of the 1800s. Here they would sit, the demagogues, dreamers and drunkards who would leave their mark on the coming century.

These cafés in turn gave name to a music club in Oslo, Norway, where a select invitation-only door policy, strict dresscode and artists such as Tony Wakeford, Spiritual Front, Solblot and The Green Man created a suitably megalomanic atmosphere. The absinthe fountain helped a bit too...

Which leads us to Café Grössenwahn Grammophon, created as a living monument – or perhaps a folly – to the club we loved. We aim to bring together some of our favourite artists both in music and the pictorial arts.

Our first release will be an extended play record entitled "Ghostly Whistlings". It is a tribute to the greatest ghost story writer of all, Montague Rhodes James. Four bands: Sol Invictus, Solblot, Sonne Hagal and Of the Wand and the Moon each deliver their interpretation of an M.R. James story set in their own country.

Cover art is by Swedish artist Fredrik Söderberg, and sleeve design is by Trine og Kim Design Studio. A small peek at the work can be seen above (Trine og Kim also created the Café Grössenwahn "absinthe grail" logo).

The record will be a strictly limited (250 copies) 10 inch record in art-edition gatefold cover.

More information will be forthcoming soon. A web page is being (re)built and a release event is planned for late January. In the meanwhile, feel free to follow the proceedings on Facebook.

Invictible

One of His Lorship's little hobbies is to write press releases for his friends' bands. So His Lordship felt honoured to be asked by one of his favourite neofolk outfits, namely Sol Invictus, to produce a short promotional text.

So why not print the result in the Chronicles as well?

After finding his musical feet in the legendary punk band Crisis and the (in)famous Death in June, Tony Wakeford has been releasing records under the name of Sol Invictus since 1987. His list of collaborators reads like a who’s who of the musical underground – Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), David Tibet (Current 93), Matt Howden (Sieben) and Kris Force (Amber Asylum) – but Sol Invictus is an underground institution in itself. Sol’s music is a place where punk collides with chamber music, and industrial noises chitchat with folk tunes. Recurring lyrical themes deal with disillusion and doubt, ideals and cynicism, often drawing on Wakeford’s own life experiences.

Lord Bassington-Bassington, Little Storping-in-the-Swuff, Febrary 2012

His Lordship is also working on a longer biography of Sol Invictus. Oh, and it seems that this blog post has coincided with the launch of Mr. wakeford's own blog.

Photos of Mr. Wakeford at Café Grössenwahn by Superfritz.

A death and a rebirth

So it's hardly a secret anymore that the Café Grössenwahn is on an indefinite hiatus. While the Heterical Cellar is back. Tonight.



It's been fun to do the Café Grössenwahn, and we here at the Chronicles would like to thank all the jolly and sharp-dressed people that helped make it so magical. Especially Solblot, Tony Wakeford, Kentin Jivek, The Green Man and Spiritual Front, who all travelled great distances to entertain us.

Dress to press

In a time when everybody is talking about digital e-books, Lord Bassington-Bassington grows more and more infatuated with the more analogue hardback book. Especially when such books are produced by small specialist presses. And few specialist publishers are more tailored to His Lordship's tastes than Scandinavia's leading purveyors of wormwoody literature, Malört Förlag.

And as these pictures from the release party for their latest book in Stockholm (the Norwegian leg of the launch was assisted by Café Grössenwahn) reveals, the staff at Malört look as good as their books. And when they produce some of the most beautiful books available, that's saying something. Quite a lot, actually.





If you can understand Swedish (or just want a rare gem for your book collection), or if you own a compact disc player, you have no excuse not to drop by Malört's webshop. For you wouldn't want these fine ladies, gentlemen and camels to run out of money for cords, tweeds and fezes, now would you?

All photo by Patrik Lundquist.

Pictorial megalomania

We are pleased to bring some pictures from last Saturday's instalment of the Café Grössenwahn, featuring a book release from the excellent Swedes at Malört förlag and a superb concert from Simone Salvatori of Spiritual Front. Thank you so much to everyone who made this evening something unique.







Thanks to Raymond Alv K. Egge for the pictures.

November playlist

We had a small gathering at the Café Grössenwahn this past Saturday. This event, entitled "The November Men (and Ladies)" was without any concert or big brouhaha, just a bunch of nice people, food and drink. All in all, a perfect way to unwind after a hectic first year of Café Grössenwahn.

And as we're wont to do here at the Chronicles whenever we've been out and about, we'll post the playlist from the night. So here it is.

Sol Invictus: "The Bad Luck Bird"Rome: "Chanson des Gestes"
Anthony and the Johnsons: "Salt Silver Oxygen"
Sub Luna: "A Distance Between"
Thomas Nöla et son Orchestre: "The Rose-Tinted Monocle"
Fräkmündt: "Wuotisheer"
Sturmpercht: "Der Tanz des Tatzelwurms"
In Slaughter Natives "Ashes of Angels"
Dernière Volonté: "Immortel"
Spiritual Front: "Darkroom Friendship"
Ronny: "Blue Cabaret"
Paul Giovanni: "Willow's Song"
Gyron V: "The Boat of the Moon"

Memento Tony

Lord Bassington-Bassington hasn't quite landed yet after the last instalment of the Café Grössenwahn, where the small club managed to get neofolk founder Mr. Wakeford to come for a spin (and Mr. Jivek to open for him).

So here's a small memento of a night of flowing absinthe and wonderful music.

Café Grössenwahn launches web pages

Web wizard Mr. Baetylous has been hard at work, and the web pages of Café Grössenwahn can now be unleashed upon the public in time for the coming Saturday, when the next gathering of the Norwegian Society for Megalomania will take place. Lord Bassington-Bassington is rather pleased with how the web pages turned out, and we in the staff here at Bassington Manor choose to ignore his complaints (such as the pictures only being of creatures with ears much too short to be acceptable in polite society, and a lack of “scratch’n’sniff” features.)

We here at the Chronicles look forward to this upcoming gathering immensely, and especially to hear live performances by French neofolk buccaneer Kentin Jivek and co-founder of neofolk, Anthony Wakeford, Esq.

Visit - and enjoy - the web pages at Grossenwahn.no. And if it seems like something you'd appreciate, feel free to apply for membership.

The political disclaimers are a reflection of the sad state of affairs here in Scandinavia.

K100 comes out of the vault

Dark ambient music is not something that really caught on in Norway, and frankly, what has been produced (none mentioned, none offended) has rarely been very interesting. So it’s good news that there seems to prop up some interesting newcomers, with S(ermo) III being particularily interesting for those with a taste for the Lovecraftian.

But the best Norwegian dark ambient project today is, in Lord Bassington-Bassington not-so-humble opinion, K100. Their first proper release, The Vault of Apparitions, just came out and aptly demonstrates what a great act they are.



Being helmed by Kim Sølve, designer extraordinaire (and person who likes to hang out in foggy places), K100 is in many ways a continuation of previous project Swarms, but K100 is a leap forward in all respects. Pitch black yet richly textured, K100 is the perfect accompaniment to your autumnal reading, writing and nightmares.



So far, K100's only manifestation outside the studio has been to provide the soundtrack for the opening ritual for Oslo’s Café Grössenwahn, but that worked so well that we here at the Chronicles are considering putting on an ambient night sometime in the future. Stay tuned!

The green fairy: The educational film

As he is involved in running the Café Grössenwahn, Lord Bassington-Bassington is sometimes asked about the absinthe fountain the Café is more or less organised around. So when he stumbled across this little informational film, he was elated. This little gem of a film tells you practically everything you need to know about absinthe.



Incidentally, the music is by In the Nursery.

All informational films should be like this.

Playlist, Café Grössenwahn II

Once more, we here at the Chronicles have helped out by playing some records at Norway's neofolk club, Café Grössenwahn. Here is the playlist.

Ostara: ”Victory Surrender”
Der Blutharsch: ”Untitled” (#5 from When did Wonderland end?)
Solblot: ”En dag”
Death in June: ”Flieger”
Giddle & Boyd: ”Contact”
Klammheim: ”Nix wies wor”
Sturmpercht: ”Wildschütz Jennerwein”
Blood Axis: "The dream"
Perrecy: ”Panik”
Dernière Volonté: ”Si”
TriORE: ”Let us meet in the trenches”
Forresta di Ferro: ”Sogni di Piombo”
Ianva: ”La ballata dell’ardito”
Sol Invictus: ”The bad luck bird”
Rome: ”Secret sons of Europe”
Current 93: ”With flowers in the garden of fires”
Fire & Ice: ”Gilded by the Sun”

Café Grössenwahn - Summer on Summerisle

Well, there's been another Café Grössenwahn. This time with an intriguing performance by Italian band The Green Man.

Despite a somewhat excessive intake of Weissbier and absinthe, we, the Chronicles' reporters on the spot, managed to stay on our feet. And we thought we'd share the following snapshots with you.

The next Café will feature a performance by one of the founding fathers of neofolk, Mr. Tony Wakeford, Esq. We can hardly wait.

Playlist, Café Grössenwahn

A few weeks ago, we here from Bassington Manor did our best to entertain the elegant ladies and gentlemen at Café Grössenwahn by spinning some tunes for them. In case you are interested, here is what was spun. DJ Baetylos handled the first part of the evening.

Since everyone knows that MP3s are soooo 2010, we’re happy to announce that half of these tracks were played from real, old-fashioned (is there any other fashion?) vinyl.

Derniere Volonte: "Toujours" (7 inch version)
Sol Invictus: "Among the Ruins"
Cult of Youth: "Train to Kill"
Klammheim: "Heimat"
Joy of Life & Apoptose: "Violet Creed"
TriORE: "Europa’s Dream"
Spiritual Front: "No Kisses on the Mouth" (Nihilist EP version)
Down in June: "The Enemy Within"
Ronny: "Blue Cabaret"
Ostara: "The First Day of Summer"
Sonne Hagal: "Midsummernight"
The Green Man: "Liber Al"
Die Weisse Rose: "Nicht Schuldig"
Current 93: "They Return to Their Earth"
Sturmpercht: "Der Tanz des Tatzelwurms"
Death in June: "Unconditional Armistice"
This Immortal Coil: "Ostia"
Hawthorn: "Wormwood Season"
Of the Wand and the Moon: "Hail Hail Hail" (Bollywood mix)
Dead Can Dance: The Carnival is Over



(That young rascal, Winthrope Bassington-Bassington, spinning some Danish industrial vinyl.)

Café Grössenwahn - opening night

And suddenly it had happened. Oslo, and Norway, had its first neofolk club – Café Grössenwahn.

As is usual with an opening night, most natural laws were replaced by Murphy’s law. It’s hard to work a volcanic eruption into your plans, and we are eternally grateful to Solblot for stepping in at the last minute to replace Duo Noir.

Solblot gave an electric performance in front of about 70 immaculately attired members of the Norwegian Society for Megalomania (which also contains Austrian, Swedish, Danish, French and Polish members), and Lord Bassington-Bassington seems to recall spontaneous outbreaks of folk dancing fuelled by absinthe and Weissbier. An inauguration ritual and performed by a merry assortment of practicising magicians and burlesque models (and set to music specially composed by ambient masters K100) also added a touch of the extraordinary to the evening.

We're also very proud of our logo, created by dynamic design duo Trine og Kim.

All things considered, we dare call it a success. And we’re already looking forward to the sequel on June 12th, which will be a tribute to neofolk film The Wicker Man featuring Italian band The Green Man.

Here are some pictures from the opening night. Thanks to Lady Mju for providing them. If some of the pictures are a bit blurry, we suspect it has something to do with the fact that this club night quite possibly set some Norwegian record for the sale of absinthe - at least on this side of the 1890s.

Announcing: Café Grössenwahn

There’s been whispers in the shadows, absinthe fountains have been purchased, bands have been approached, some of Norway’s most exciting designers are working on the graphics, but only now can it be made official: Norway’s first club devoted to neofolk (and related genres) is now a reality. The name is Café Grössenwahn, which translates as “Café Megalomania” and is a nod to the several gathering places in inter-war Europe where dreamers, eccentrics and decadents have gathered.



We’ve secured an amazing venue in central Oslo, where we plan, a few times a year, to create an atmosphere where extravagantly attired ladies and gentlemen (and perhaps a Basset hound or two…) hobnob over glasses of absinthe and fine beer, while truly initiated DJ’s and fine live acts provide the entertainment.

The opening night will be on Saturday, April 24th, where Duo Noir, the stripped-down acoustic version of Sol Invictus, will provide the entertainment, and other, exciting bands are being booked as we write.



The bad news is that the events are only open to card-carrying members of the Norwegian Society for Megalomania. The good news is that the society is accepting (indeed, soliciting!) new members, and is looking for people with a minimum of manners (as the club will mostly have acoustic performances), who understand that importance of dressing up to create the right atmosphere, and are not cheap, as these events will depend upon the venues having a certain turnover in the bar.

In principle, the Society is open to anyone who fulfills these criteria, regardless of religion, politics and so on, but because of the sad state of affairs here in Scandinavia we feel the need to very explicitly distance ourselves from right-wing extremists. Such people will be refused membership.

Prospective members are hereby invited to drop a line to neofolk (at) zog (dot) no.