Chapter I: This Endless Solitude

With three decades full of credits spanning from black metal and doom to the avant-garde, Tor-Helge Skei has remained one of the most consistent and surprising talents in extreme music. A founding member of Manes, in 2024, the Norwegian mainstay, multi-instrumentalist and producer was revisiting unfinished songs when a new project emerged. Holissstik’s debut album and first in a trilogy dwells on the darkness that permeates our lives. But while haunted by deeply personal visions, Skei finds solace through the spirit of collaboration.       As could only be the case, Holissstik’s opening chapter started with Skei alone at his studio. But after meticulously sketching This Endless Solitude with an assortment of guitars, recording software and homemade plug-ins, he allowed outside influences to take control. Featuring a wide net of more than 15 collaborators that includes members of Manes and Buddhist monks, the album unfolds with surprising twists and turns right from the start. “The Rhythm of Silence” slips seamlessly through the cracks between trip-hop and industrial noise into rap.    Much like the wilted flowers that lay on its cover, death and its psychological offshoots linger in the many corners of This Endless Solitude. Hypnotized by soft spinning synths, “Reoccuring Dreams” quickly descends into a nightmare. But amidst deep-seeded anxieties, intrusive thoughts and other ceaseless discomforts, like a rope that guides one out of a cave, Holissstik still cling to hope. “Would you take this heart / to relieve my chest / of the heaviness”, a familiar face in Martyna Halas offers during the album’s enchanting centerpiece. It’s not a question but an invitation to become something greater than ourselves.     With This Endless Solitude, Holissstik emerge as a boundless, unified force.  

View Holissstik Shop now