GÅTE: Tradition, Transformation and the Living Spirit of Sigil -

Gunnhild Sundli and Magnus Børmark discuss Norwegian folklore, Eurovision, creative change and the stories behind GÅTE’s new album Sigil

Norwegian folk rock trailblazers GÅTE have never approached tradition as something that belongs behind glass.

Across more than two decades, the band have drawn upon Norwegian ballads, folklore, regional musical traditions and ancient stories, carrying them into a world of heavy guitars, Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, electronics and the unmistakable voice of Gunnhild Sundli.

Their latest album, Sigil, released through Season of Mist, represents another significant point in that journey.

It arrives after a period of enormous change and visibility for GÅTE. The acoustic exploration of Til Nord and Nord stripped the band back to its foundations. Founding member Sveinung Sundli departed. Then “Ulveham” carried Norwegian folk tradition onto the Eurovision stage in 2024, introducing GÅTE to listeners far beyond their established audience.

Rather than simplifying their identity after that international exposure, Sigil moves even deeper into the stories, symbolism and traditions that have always driven the band.

Across ten tracks, ancient narratives become reflections of the present. The Wild Hunt becomes a vision of doomscrolling and endless digital consumption. Truth speakers are persecuted for revealing what others would rather ignore. The living encounter the dead, the Earth itself appears to withdraw, and finally the record reaches the fragile survival at the heart of “Jostedalsrypa.”

For Crannk, Jai That Aussie Metal Guy spoke with vocalist Gunnhild Sundli and guitarist, nyckelharpa player and producer Magnus Børmark about keeping tradition alive through transformation, what Eurovision taught GÅTE about themselves, the creation of the Sigil symbol and why survival does not always arrive as a triumphant victory.

Sometimes it is simply something small and fragile that refuses to disappear.

GÅTE x Crannk Interview

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: GÅTE have spent more than two decades treating Norwegian tradition as something living rather than fixed. How much freedom do you allow yourselves when changing inherited melodies, words and stories, and where do you feel the line exists between keeping tradition alive and changing it beyond recognition?

Magnus Børmark: We allow ourselves a great deal of artistic freedom. To us, tradition is kept alive precisely through use, transformation and personal interpretation. The line is not necessarily defined by how much the original material has changed, but by the relationship you have with the source. Are you approaching it with curiosity, respect and a genuine connection, or are you simply using tradition as decoration? A melody or story may become almost unrecognisable in form and still carry something essential from its origin. Tradition has never been static; every generation that carried it forward also shaped it.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: Til Nord and Nord stripped away much of the electricity and scale people associated with GÅTE. What did that acoustic period teach you about the true musical DNA of the band, and which of those lessons still exist inside the much fuller sound of Sigil?

Magnus Børmark: The acoustic period taught us that GÅTE’s musical identity does not primarily reside in volume, heaviness or production. It lives in the melodies, the rhythms, the stories and Gunnhild’s way of communicating them. When the larger elements were stripped away, every note and every musical decision had to carry more meaning. That lesson is still very present on Sigil. Even though the sound is once again large, heavy and highly detailed, we want the songs to work at their most naked level. The production should amplify the core of the music, not become the core itself.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: Sigil is also the first complete album statement following the departure of founding member Sveinung Sundli. How did that change affect the way GÅTE approached its identity, songwriting and traditional instrumentation moving forward?

Magnus Børmark: Sveinung left the band by his own choice. He had been a founding member since 1999, so naturally it was a significant change, but by the end we had begun moving in different directions. The rest of us shared a fairly clear sense of where we wanted to take GÅTE, while Sveinung was no longer truly motivated to continue playing in the band. His departure therefore created a surprisingly positive creative wave.

I have always been deeply involved in the songwriting and production, but I was able to take that further, while Gunnhild and I also began working more closely together. We have tried to listen carefully to where each song wants to go, creating a different and perhaps more fragile creative space than we had before.

We were also blessed to have musicians such as Olav Mjelva, John Stenersen of Wardruna, and Arent Todal contributing Hardanger fiddle, fiddle, nyckelharpa and hurdy-gurdy to the album. Arent became a permanent member during the making of Sigil. He had just returned to Norway after seven years in Los Angeles working with film scores and other musical ventures, so we were very fortunate to catch him at exactly that moment. His vast musical range, combined with an inherited folk tradition, has come to embody much of GÅTE’s new sound. He even plays the old Hardanger fiddle that belonged to his grandfather.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: “Ulveham” carried a deeply Norwegian folk story onto one of the biggest televised stages in the world. Once Eurovision, the competition and the enormous attention had passed, what remained with GÅTE creatively and emotionally?

Gunnhild Sundli: It was an amazing experience on so many levels. We travelled a lot, met an incredible number of people, and got to experience our music reaching people far beyond Norway in a way we had never experienced before.

But I also think the whole journey made us understand ourselves better as artists. Being in that environment, and presenting something that is so deeply rooted in where we come from to such a huge international audience, made us reflect more on what we actually do and why we do it. In a way, we came out of Eurovision knowing ourselves and our artistic identity better than before.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: “Ulveham” now exists in several musical and lyrical forms. Do you consider one version definitive, or does the song itself now reflect GÅTE’s wider belief that traditional material should remain open to reinterpretation?

Magnus Børmark: We actually learned a great deal from having to distil a seven-minute song into the three-minute format required for Eurovision. We have nothing against long songs, quite the opposite, but sometimes it is healthy to be completely ruthless about what is truly essential and what is merely there because it can be.

For me, the three-minute MGP version is the definitive version of “Ulveham.” So many brutal decisions had to be made, and we had to be completely honest about what genuinely served the song and what was simply ornamentation.

Before Eurovision, we also had to rewrite the lyrics. Our participation was nearly challenged because the existing text was not considered original, which was true, of course: it came from an old traditional ballad, and working with inherited material is fundamental to our entire project. But we accepted the challenge and wrote a new lyric that condensed the essence of the story more clearly than our earlier approach, where we had selected fragments from perhaps thirty traditional verses.

That process also encouraged us to begin writing more of the lyrics ourselves. We discovered that we could preserve the core of an old story while communicating its dramatic arc with greater clarity. The entire process of distillation became deeply inspiring for us. So although “Ulveham” can exist in several forms, if you ask me, I am very fond of the concentrated three-minute Eurovision version.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: Sigil is your first album with Season of Mist and represents a more internationally focused chapter for GÅTE. Does reaching listeners outside Norway require explaining or translating the cultural context of the music, or do you trust the emotion and atmosphere to communicate without that background knowledge?

Gunnhild Sundli: I definitely trust the emotion and atmosphere of the music to communicate on its own. I actually think that not understanding the language can sometimes be an advantage. When you don’t understand every word, you may listen in a different way, and the music can speak directly to the heart.

Of course, knowing the stories and the cultural context can add another layer to the experience, and we are happy to share that with people who are curious. But I don’t think you need that knowledge in order to connect with the music. Music has this wonderful ability to communicate across language and cultural boundaries.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: What does the title Sigil represent to you, and how does the symbolic artwork connect with the album’s wider themes of enchantment, prophecy, mortality and renewal?

Magnus Børmark: Where words become insufficient, symbols take over. Very early in the process, it became clear that we wanted a visual symbol that could seal, or perhaps channel, the spirit of GÅTE at this particular point in our journey.

That led us to the idea of a sigil, a word that can be understood as a sacred seal. One way of charging a sigil with meaning is to transform letters into a visual form. Around the circle, you can find the letters L, R, F, D, V, D, I and B. They are the initials of a sentence we agreed could contain something essential about the spirit of GÅTE:

La røyst frå djupet vekke draumen i blodet.

“Let the voice from the depths awaken the dream in the blood.”

The sigil also draws upon Norwegian rosemaling, runic forms and the spiral. Like our music, it does not belong exclusively to any single tradition. It brings different visual languages together in a continuing search for something timeless and enduring.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: The record appears to move through enchantment, hunger, truth, death and desolation before arriving at survival and renewal. Was that emotional journey deliberately planned, or did the larger narrative reveal itself once the songs came together?

Magnus Børmark: It was both discovered and deliberately shaped. The individual songs were not initially written as chapters in a predetermined narrative. Each of them arrived with its own story and its own force. But as the album developed, we began to recognise that they were describing a larger movement through desire, loss and transformation.

Early in the album, we encounter Oskorsreia, the Norwegian manifestation of the Wild Hunt, a mythological phenomenon found in many cultures. To us, it captures something essential about the world today. We have created a digital Wild Hunt through doomscrolling, algorithms and an insatiable hunger for more that never leaves us satisfied. From there, the album moves towards a kind of apocalyptic climax in Mi Jord, where the soul of the Earth departs her body. Finally, in Jostedalsrypa, a small and fragile spark of life survives.

Once we recognised that arc, we could strengthen it through the sequencing and production. The album did not want to end in death or desolation, but in continuity, not as a great victory, but simply as life continuing after almost everything has disappeared.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: GÅTE combine Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, hurdy-gurdy and other traditional instruments with heavy guitar, percussion, programming and electronics. When writing a new song, what usually comes first: the story, the traditional melody, a particular instrument, or something entirely different?

Magnus Børmark: It can begin with almost anything. Sometimes it is a story, a myth or simply something we have stumbled upon in an old tale or legend that stirs our curiosity. At other times, the music arrives first and only reveals its meaning later.

“Sannsiger,” for example, began as a guitar loop I created while composing music for a theatre production. The guitar was covered in effects, and I thought the loop sounded interesting, so I recorded it on my iPhone. It happened to be in a metre of seven. I imported that phone recording directly into my DAW, played nyckelharpa over it, and suddenly something was there. After about a day’s work, we essentially had the instrumental foundation of the song.

As we continued developing it, the story gradually revealed itself: the truth-seers throughout history who have been suppressed or killed for speaking truths that society did not want to hear. That is one of the most exciting things about creation. A song can be seeded by, or grow from, almost anything.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: “Oskorsreia” takes the Wild Hunt and uses it as a reflection of modern consumption, distraction and endless appetite. What made that ancient story feel especially relevant to the world we are living in now?

Magnus Børmark: I touched upon this in question eight, but the Wild Hunt feels as prevalent as ever because we now have a digital Wild Hunt. When we are scrolling away on our phones, we become half-dead ghosts and zombies, caught in a cycle of endless, insatiable hunger. In the old myths, the Hunt could manifest through violence, vulgarity and all kinds of transgression. Today, we are drawn into something similar through the digital domain. It seduces us in much the same way and activates the same faculties within us.

I do not see it as an external evil force. It is more like a condensed, collective and self-feeding pool of the darker aspects of humanity. By bringing it into the light, we can perhaps recognise something about ourselves within it. For us, working with tradition is not about recreating old things. It is about discovering the timeless qualities within archetypal myths, and the Wild Hunt is an exceptionally powerful one.

Placing “Oskorsreia” near the beginning stretches the canvas on which the rest of the album can unfold. It is also, to me, perhaps the catchiest and heaviest song on the record. Its aggression cannot exist only in the lyrics, as the music itself has to express the madness, the perversions and the hunger that can never be satisfied.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: “Sannsiger” brings Maria Franz of Heilung together with Gunnhild’s voice around the idea of the truth speaker or seer. What made Maria the right person for that song, and what did you want the collaboration to become beyond simply bringing two recognised Nordic voices together?

Gunnhild Sundli: Maria is an amazing artist, singer and musician. Magnus had contributed to Songleikr, a project that Maria is part of, and through that they started talking about the possibility of doing something together with Gåte.

I had also met Maria a few times, and you know that feeling when you meet someone and it somehow feels like you have known each other for a very long time? That’s how I felt with Maria. There was a very natural connection between us.

When we were working on “Sannsiger”, she was someone we thought of quite early because the song felt like it could really suit her voice and her expression. Maria also really liked the song when she heard the demo, so it all came together very naturally. And when we finally heard our voices together on the song, it felt like we had been right, she really belonged in that musical world.

Jai That Aussie Metal Guy: The closing stretch moves through “Strandvaskar,” “Mi Jord” and finally “Jostedalsrypa,” where survival follows extraordinary loss. Why was that final image of somebody continuing after their world has effectively disappeared the right way to close Sigil, and what do you hope listeners carry with them when the album ends?

Gunnhild Sundli: For me, “Jostedalsrypa” represents something very important at the end of this album. The story is about a young girl who survives the Black Death, alone, after the world around her has essentially disappeared. There is something incredibly powerful in that image: she is small and vulnerable, and yet she survives.

A lot of Sigil deals with loss and transformation, and with what happens when something is lost and something new has to begin. So I think “Jostedalsrypa” leaves us with a sense of life continuing, even after unimaginable loss.

Maybe that is also what I hope people can carry with them when the album ends. That what survives is not always something big or powerful. Sometimes it is something very small and fragile. But it is still there. And from that, something new can begin.

Tradition That Refuses to Stand Still

Across the conversation, one idea continually returns: tradition survives through movement.

Whether that means stripping GÅTE down during the Nord period, condensing “Ulveham” for Eurovision, writing new words around inherited stories, bringing ancient instruments together with modern technology or discovering contemporary meaning inside the Wild Hunt, GÅTE are not attempting to recreate some perfectly preserved version of the past.

They are allowing it to continue.

Magnus’ observation that tradition has never been static and that every generation carrying it forward has also shaped it feels particularly important when considering Sigil.

The same philosophy runs throughout the album. Ancient stories change because the world hearing them has changed, yet the emotions beneath them remain remarkably familiar: desire, fear, truth, loss, mortality and the stubborn persistence of life.

And perhaps that persistence is where Sigil ultimately finds its heart.

Not in some enormous moment of victory, but in Gunnhild’s final image of something small and fragile surviving after everything around it has disappeared.

From that, something new can begin.

A huge thank you to Gunnhild Sundli and Magnus Børmark of GÅTE for taking the time to speak with Crannk and for sharing the deeper story behind Sigil.

Thanks also to Sébastien and Season of Mist for making the interview possible.

Sigil is out now through Season of Mist.

Order Sigil:
https://orcd.co/gatesigil

GÅTE Line-up

Gunnhild Sundli — Vocals
Magnus Børmark — Guitars, Nyckelharpa, Sounds, FX, Programming, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Jon Even Schärer — Drums, Percussion, Programming, Mouth Harp, Backing Vocals
Arent Todal — Hardanger Fiddle, Nyckelharpa, Violin, Sounds, Backing Vocals
Mats Paulsen — Bass, Backing Vocals