For more than 15 years, Dutch composer and multi-instrumentalist Faber Horbach has guided Sowulo through a musical exploration of light, life, and the sun’s eternal cycle. With NIHT (“Night”), he turns toward the shadows, crafting a concept album born from personal tragedy and steeped in ancient ritual. Written in the aftermath of losing both his father and stepfather, NIHT transforms grief into a meditation on death, not as an ending, but as a passage toward clarity and renewal.

The first single, “Āsteorfan” (“To Die”), began this journey. Built on the deep resonance of nyckelharpa and carnyx, woven with throat singing and primal percussion, the track feels at once ancestral and intimate. Through Anglo-Saxon verses, it urges the listener to “die before you die,” dissolving the ego to reach deeper wisdom. Minimal yet immersive, it is a moment of surrender that invites silence to speak.

“Sōl ond Māni” (“Sun and Moon”) expands the scope into myth and cosmic fate. Drawing from Norse cosmology, the song recounts the chase of the sun and moon by two wolves until Ragnarök, when their light is extinguished and the world is plunged into endless winter. Horbach sings this lament over the slow pounding of drums, carnyx, and tagelharpa, his voice shifting from whispered invocation to raw, feral cry. The track also carries a more personal elegy; its aching strings come from a broken nyckelharpa, damaged after a live performance, now given new life as a vessel for loss.

Elsewhere on NIHT, “Mōnaþblōd” (“Moonblood”) channels the moon’s sacred cycles, feminine power, and lunar rhythm through the commanding voice of Micky Huijsmans. Across the album, Horbach uses historical instruments, mythic storytelling, and an unflinching gaze into the darkness to create something both cinematic and deeply human.

With NIHT, Sowulo steps into the realm of night as teacher, grief as guide, and the moon as witness. The result is an album that breathes with ritual, memory, and the promise that from the deepest dark, light will one day return.