The nine worlds of Eldrvættir: a Norse myth cycle in ten albums
Eldrvættir built a ten-album cycle around the nine worlds of Norse myth, from Asgard to Niflheim. The records, the playlists and the order to hear them.
Most albums on Nova are built around a mood or a use. A few are built around a story, and the most ambitious of these belongs to Eldrvættir, a Norwegian project whose ten albums follow the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, one world per record, with a longer tenth album, Ek Man Enn, standing apart. Seventy-one tracks of ambient, electronic, new age and voice make up the cycle. This article is a guide to it: what each world sounds like, how the playlists are organised, and the best order to hear it in.
The cycle at a glance
In the Norse picture of the cosmos, nine worlds hang on the branches and roots of the world tree. Eldrvættir gives each one an album of five to nine tracks, named plainly after the world. On Nova every album also has a matching public playlist, so you can listen either as a record or as part of your own queue.
| World | In the myth | On the record |
|---|---|---|
| Asgard | Home of the gods | Brass and ceremony; the most grand of the nine |
| Vanaheim | Home of the Vanir, gods of fertility | Warm new age, the gentlest album in the set |
| Alfheim | Realm of the light elves | Bright, airy new age with high voices |
| Midgard | The human world | Ambient with a human pulse, the hinge of the cycle |
| Jotunheim | Land of the giants | The longest world, nine tracks, saxophone and weight |
| Svartalfheim | Realm of the dwarves, under the mountains | The hardest edges, tagged angry, forges and stone |
| Niflheim | World of mist and ice | Cold ambient drones, six tracks |
| Muspelheim | World of fire | Brass again, but scorched rather than ceremonial |
| Helheim | Realm of the dead | The stillest ambient of the nine |
The tenth album, Ek Man Enn, Old Norse for I still remember, is 21 tracks long and the only one led by voices. It reads as the storyteller's own record, looking back across the worlds, and it has the biggest playlist of the set, Ek Man Enn - Eldrvættir.
What the music sounds like
Eldrvættir is tagged ambient, electronic, new age and vocals, and the balance shifts world by world. The common thread is scale: long tones, slow builds, drums that arrive late and leave early, and voices used as texture rather than as lyric. You could file the quieter albums beside Aurelion or Yumae on the ambient page, and the louder ones beside the soundtrack and orchestral tags. Nothing on the cycle is a pop song; everything on it is scenery.
How to listen in order
There is no official sequence, but the myth suggests one, and it works as a listening arc. Begin high and bright and descend.
- Asgard, Vanaheim and Alfheim: the upper worlds, grand then warm then bright.
- Midgard: the middle, and the most human album, a good place to pause.
- Jotunheim and Svartalfheim: the heavy, dangerous worlds.
- Niflheim and Muspelheim: ice and fire, the extremes.
- Helheim: the end, and the quietest.
- Ek Man Enn: the memory of all of it.
In the app, the simplest way to do this is to open the first album, let it play, and when it ends open the next; the Up Next list follows whatever you started from. If you would rather build the whole descent as one queue, add the nine world playlists in order to a new playlist of your own. Our guide to playlists and your library explains how.
Ways to use the cycle
Because the music is instrumental and slow, the cycle suits long attention: reading, drawing, a train journey, a night drive. Several of the albums also work in rooms. Vanaheim and Alfheim are gentle enough for a spa or a hotel lobby, Midgard and Niflheim for a quiet bar, and Asgard for an entrance or an event. Venues can play all of it under Nova Business, which includes the public performance licence for Nova music.
Why projects like this matter
A catalogue that is owned rather than licensed can afford to carry a ten-album concept cycle that no chart would ask for. On Nova it sits beside Thavernia's music for an imagined tabletop world and Paper Lantern's long lo-fi records, part of a library that is organised by intent. If you want to see how the rest of the catalogue fits together, start with the Nova catalogue explained.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Eldrvættir? A Norwegian ambient and electronic project on Nova with ten albums based on the nine worlds of Norse mythology plus the vocal album Ek Man Enn.
In what order should I listen to the Eldrvættir albums? A natural arc is Asgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Midgard, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Helheim and then Ek Man Enn, descending from the upper worlds to the lower.
Are there playlists for the nine worlds? Yes. Each world has a public playlist on Nova with the same name, and Ek Man Enn has the largest at 21 tracks.
Is Eldrvættir suitable as background music for a venue? The gentler worlds, such as Vanaheim and Alfheim, suit spas and lobbies; the heavier ones suit bars and events. All of it is covered by a Nova Business subscription.
