In the Icelandic tongue, “hér” means “here.” It is not a name chosen for mere aesthetic convenience; it is a methodology. For the Polish ensemble HÉR, this word defines a creative purpose: to evoke a space for “human communion” and issue a call to presence. In a cultural moment defined by perpetual distraction, their work functions as a direct invitation, formalized in the Icelandic phrase “Sestu hérna”—“Sit here with us.”

This invitation will be given its definitive form on January 30, 2026, with the release of their debut full-length album, ‘Monochrome’, via the French label Season of Mist.

Hailing from the northern shores of Poland, HÉR has emerged not as a simple revivalist act, but as a collective of seekers and storytellers. Their work, described as a “meditation on presence,” is a deliberate synthesis of Slavic melody, Scandinavian atmosphere, and a profound, challenging philosophical framework. ‘Monochrome’ is not an album intended to be heard in passing; it is an environment intended to be inhabited, a ritual space demanding the one thing most difficult to give: our full, undivided attention.

HÉR: From Gdańsk to the Edda

To explore the sound of ‘Monochrome,’ one must first look to its origin: Gdańsk. This northern Polish port city, perched on the Baltic coast, has long been a site of cultural convergence, looking outward toward Scandinavia and inward toward the deep, complex history of Slavic and European experimentalism.

HÉR is a product of this unique convergence. The music merges “Slavic melody and Scandinavian atmosphere into a single elemental voice,” but the execution is what sets the ensemble apart.

This is not a conventional folk group. The lineup includes formidable, Fryk-nominated musicians from Poland’s contemporary avant-garde and jazz scenes. Vocalist and violinist Tomasz Chyła is a celebrated leader in his own right; his Tomasz Chyła Quintet is known for its energetic, common and open improvisation and virtuosic performances.

His violin, described as a “seemingly non-jazz instrument,” has been praised for its brilliant symbiosis within complex, improvisational structures. He is joined by saxophonist Piotr Chęcki, a fixture in Poland’s avant-garde jazz circles and a member of boundary-pushing groups like Nucleon and Sekstant.

The inclusion of these artists explains why the label’s description, “Nordic Fusion Jazz Contemporary,” is not a marketing tag but a literal statement of pedigree. HÉR’s music is built on a foundation of raw vocal incantations and trance-like percussion, yet it is filtered through the technical freedom and sophisticated harmonic language of contemporary improvisation.

This approach places HÉR within a distinctly Polish lineage. While the themes are Nordic, the methodology evokes the spirit of Poland’s own experimental heritage, most notably the legendary Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES). Established in 1957, PRES became an outpost for avant-garde composition, where pioneers like Eugeniusz Rudnik used tape loops and electronics to deconstruct sound, often smuggling social critique into his work.

As the scholar Ewa Mazierska has documented in her cultural history of the genre, popular Polish electronic music has long drawn from a “variety of inspirations, such as progressive rock and folk music.” HÉR continues this tradition, applying a modern, sophisticated, and distinctly Polish musical language to the ancient texts of the North. This is not a reenactment of the past; it is a deep, scholarly, and artistic engagement with it.

The Wisdom of Decay: ‘Needles and Bark’

The album’s intellectual and emotional thesis is delivered in its lead single, ‘Needles and Bark.’ The song is a stark, five-minute immersion into the world HÉR seeks to create, channeling the spirit of Icelandic fjords and Norse myth. Its lyrical concept is drawn directly from the Poetic Edda, the source of Old Norse mythology. Specifically, the band cites an ancient meditation on decay and endurance, referencing a dying pine tree on a rock, unprotected by its needles or bark.

Here, the band’s central philosophy is revealed. The song does not revel in this bleakness for its own sake; it presents a dialectic. The ancient text diagnoses the problem—isolation, a spiritual death. The music, in turn, offers the solution. The band’s entire purpose is to foster human communion and to invite the listener to sit with them.

The song is a ritual, using its raw vocal incantations and the tense, atmospheric pull of Chyła’s bowed strings to create a collective space. ‘Needles and Bark’ is a grim wisdom text, and the act of listening—of being “here” with the music—is its prescribed antidote.

‘Monochrome’ Architecture of Shadow

The album’s title, ‘Monochrome,’ is its conceptual and aesthetic key. This is not a figurative descriptor; it is a literal one. The album was recorded at Monochrom Studio in Gniewoszów, Poland, under the direction of producer Ignacy Gruszecki, indicating the concept was central to the album’s creation from the beginning.

‘Monochrome’ is presented as seven movements that explore the thresholds between stillness and force, light and shadow. This is an aesthetic argument. In a saturated visual and sonic world, the monochrome approach is an act of deliberate reduction. By stripping away excess, the music is forced to draw its power from texture, contrast, and atmosphere. It is designed to channel not just sound, but its opposite: the weight of silence.

This framework is the key to exploring the dark beauty of the North that the band explores. The music delves into a world of extremes, referencing fire and ice, violence and tenderness, terror and awe. The monochrome palette is not an absence of color; it is an embrace of the shadow, a realization that stillness is as potent as force, and light is meaningless without shadow.

This philosophy is visualized in the album’s cover photography by Mary Zaleska. The stark, tactile imagery forces the eye to engage with form and texture, compelling the viewer to look into the image, not merely at it. The music functions in precisely the same way. To be present, to truly be “here,” one must be willing to sit with the silence and the shadow.

A New Ritual Lineage

In positioning HÉR, the label suggests the band will appeal to fans of Heilung, Nick Cave, Wardruna, and Bohren & der Club of Gore. This list is not a casual grouping of peers but a brilliant, concise explanation of HÉR’s hybrid DNA, outlining a new artistic lineage.

First, Heilung and Wardruna represent the thematic foundation. These groups are the modern architects of the dark Nordic folk sound, using shamanic percussion, mythological storytelling, and evocations of arcane rituals to transport the listener. This is HÉR’s what: the ancient, elemental source material.

Second, Bohren & der Club of Gore provides the atmospheric method. The German ensemble is a pioneer of dark jazz or doom-ridden jazz. Their music is glacial paced, using instruments like the saxophone, double bass and brush drums to build an eerie atmosphere of profound, minimalist dread. This is HÉR’s how: the Fusion Jazz that allows Piotr Chęcki’s saxophone and Tomasz Chyła’s violin to create suspense and shadow.

Finally, Nick Cave represents the philosophical gravity. Cave is a master of the sepulchral voice, defined by his lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love, and violence. He plunges his audience into a murky narrative where the sacred and the profane are violently unsettling. This is HÉR’s why: the commitment to exploring universal, human, fundamental experiences that lie beneath the myths.

HÉR is the synthesis. They are unique because they are the first to credibly merge all three traditions. They are performing the rituals of Heilung with the instrumentation of Bohren & der Club of Gore and the sepulchral lyrical weight of Nick Cave. This is the birth of a new, hybrid European sound: Gothic Jazz Folk.

The Seven Movements

The album itself is structured as a complete, 42-minute journey. These are not seven songs, but seven movements, a term that underscores its deliberate, almost classical composition. The physical release, available as a CD Digipak and a gatefold vinyl pressed on unfinished, heavy card stock with embossing, emphasizes this tactile, immersive quality.

The narrative arc of the tracklist is a guided meditation. It begins with the formidable, ten-minute-plus opener, ‘Chant,’ a track designed to establish the hypnotic call and trance-like rhythm that pulls the listener into the album’s ritual space. This is immediately followed by the album’s thesis, ‘Needles and Bark.’

The journey continues through ‘Going Down’ and finds its contemplative, still center in the brief ‘Patience in Observation,’ a title that perfectly encapsulates the album’s theme. The journey then builds again through ‘Slipknot’ and the burning ritual of ‘Praise the Day,’ before finding its resolution in the six-and-a-half-minute closer, ‘Farewell.’

This entire world was shaped by producer Ignacy Gruszecki and given its final, precise form by mixer and mastering engineer Marcin Bors at Fonoplastykon. The result is a work designed to be experienced in its entirety, an uninterrupted meditation that demands and rewards the very “presence” it describes.

The Weight of Presence

In a culture of sensory overload and digital saturation, ‘Monochrome’ is an act of defiance. It does not vie for attention with volume or spectacle, but with depth. It is an antidote that functions by withholding, forcing a confrontation with the weight of silence and the thresholds between light and shadow.

HÉR, true to its name, has crafted a work that is not an escape from the “here” and now, but a demand to fully inhabit it. By weaving together the improvisational spirit of Polish jazz, the atmospheric dread of doom jazz, and the ancient wisdom of Norse mythology, HÉR has created more than an album. They have crafted a necessary ritual, a stark and beautiful meditation on what it means to simply be present in a world that pulls us elsewhere.

HÉR’s music is presented as a “necessary ritual.” As you anticipate this debut, which aspect of their sound—the mythical storytelling, the jazz improvisation, or the philosophical weight—do you expect to resonate most deeply?