Season of Mist have announced the signing of HOLISSSTIK — a new collective project led by Tor-Helge Skei, founding member of Norwegian avant-garde pillars MANES and LETHE and one of the most quietly influential figures in extreme music over the past three decades.
Skei's career traces an arc from the raw black and doom metal of early MANES through an ever-widening exploration of the avant-garde: electronic textures, jazz, ambient, and beyond. His thirty years in the underground have produced work that consistently resists categorisation, and HOLISSSTIK — the name itself suggests an all-encompassing, holistic approach — looks set to be his most deliberately expansive project yet.
The project emerged in 2024 when Skei returned to a cache of unfinished material from earlier projects and found a new idea taking shape around it. Rather than working within the controlled parameters of a solo record, he assembled a wide net of collaborators — including LETHE partner Anna Murphy, fellow MANES members, and other close associates — and gave them an unusual set of instructions: none. No rules, no limitations, no restrictions. Pure artistic freedom, with the hope of creating something larger than the sum of its parts.
The result blends metal, electronic music, jazz, and trip-hop into a sound that reflects Skei's panoramic musical vision while remaining genuinely unpredictable — precisely because he chose to relinquish control in the studio.
The signing comes as a surprise even to Skei himself. The project was originally conceived as something purely DIY: "The idea for HOLISSSTIK was to make music in a simple, DIY way. We planned on just posting MP3s online," he explains. "That we ended up here at Season of Mist is far above what we originally intended!"
He continues: "Collaboration is the heart and soul of HOLISSSTIK. Each part of the music cannot exist or be understood when separated from the whole. We can't wait to share the first album very soon."
HOLISSSTIK's debut album — the first in a planned trilogy — will be announced soon. A teaser from the upcoming single is available now on the Season of Mist YouTube channel.