Draugormr (ᛞᚱᚨᚢᚷᛟᚱᛗᚱ) is the artist name of Staffan Lindsgård, a creator from Sweden. I’ve written music as a hobby for a long time and thought that maybe I should try to actually get some of it out there. Sure, I love the creative process of making music, but it would be great to share my vision with more people.
What music is Draugormr about?
It will mostly be electronic music with a skew towards the experimental and non-conformist. It is a mixture though, so there will be some strange experiments with noise and distortion as well as some synth pop, singer/songwriter-esque tunes and more. I don’t feel tied down to a specific genre and I don’t see a reason to be at the moment either. This is a hobby project of mine, not an attempt at becoming the next big thing in whatever genre.
From my branding, you’d be excused to think I’m making viking music. I can’t promise I won’t, but it’s not my aim to only make such music. In short, expect only to hear what I feel like making.
Will you tour or play at event X?
Probably not. I might if I feel like it – and I have both festivals and live radio in the past – but it’s not an aim at the moment. Also, before that will happen I need to grow a bit bigger. Currently I lack the gear to do any actual gigs, but if you have an event for which it would be a fit I could probably throw together an improv noise session.
Where does the name come from?
I read a short-story about a tagger who went under the name “Phantom Snake” when I was a kid. He put his signature all over his home town, but since it was a ghost story it didn’t end too well for him. The name has been stuck in my head since then, but I’ve never actually used it for anything. When I started thinking about what name I should release my music under the name popped up again. But I didn’t want to use it verbatim. I wanted to make it my own.
I tried it in swedish first, but while it sounds nice when spoken out loud it looks pretty bad when written. “Gastorm”. Noone is going to pronounce it correctly. Not even swedes. Not until they hear someone else say it first. Instead I went for the old norse version of it. And I liked it a whole lot better.
The name in runes, ᛞᚱᚨᚢᚷᛟᚱᛗᚱ, is written using the elder futhark. Some would say that it’s not entirely correct to use the elder futhark since those who spoke old norse would most likely have used the younger futhark (or a variation) instead, but it just looks a whole lot better. Also, the younger futhark didn’t have distinct symbols for all letters, so voiced and unvoiced versions would have the same symbol. And Draugormr isn’t a history project. It’s for putting my music out there. And most of it will not be historic viking music.