As anyone who has seen her band can attest, Nikoline Spjelkavic has a flair for the dramatic. But then, so does black metal as a genre, and it's those dramatics that have made Witch Club Satan such an exciting force in the genre in recent years.
Hammer caught up with the vocalist/guitarist to find out what records set her on the path to infamy - and brilliance, and you can hear her picks in the handy playlist below.
1. Mari Boine - Suoivva (Idjagieđas - In the Hand of the Night, 2006)
"Mari Boine is Norwegian, but also Sámi [an indigenous culture of northern Scandinavia]. I’m also from the Northern part of Norway, so above the Polar Circle and I’m from an island in the middle of the ocean. There’s a lot of extreme, heavy weather: in winter it’s all black, we don’t get sun for like two months, but in Summer we’ll have the midnight sun. This environment shaped me to be very dramatic and Mari is really representative of that.
Her album Idjagieđas – In The Hand Of The Night, is incredible. The Sámi people are known for ritualistic practices, pre-dating Christianity so there’s lots of shamanistic drums and to me, music in that form is magic. She makes music that’s magic in the purest sense. The song Suoivva starts only with her voice, but builds like a spell."
2. Turbonegro - Fuck The World (Scandinavian Leather, 2003)
"I discovered a lot of music through my father. He’s not a musician at all, but he started a music festival on our island when he was a kid – like 18. It’s continued ever since, a rock and metal festival in this very special place.
Fuck The World is my favourite TURBONEGRO song. I discovered them when I was nine, at my father’s festival. I idolised Hank Von Hell, there was just something about the filth and uncivil rock’n’roll attitude that triggered me. It was so far from what I was supposed to be as a little nine-year-old girl! I remember at one point he had a firework in his anus and they threw buckets of blood onto the audience, followed by feathers."
3. Kollwitz - Like Iron I Rust (Like Iron I Rust, 2010)
"Hardcore came into my life a bit later – around high school. I was lucky to be part of a community which had its own DIY punk scene where we put on our own concerts and festivals. As a straight-edge kid, I came from this village of 250 people and I was pretty alone in terms of what I liked and not drinking was pretty unsual here too.
I found this vegan, straight-edge, feminist punk scene and politics became very important to me. Kollwitz were an important band for that, Like Iron I Rust is one of my favourite records.
4. Radka Toneff - The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Some Time Ago, 2003)
"Radka Toneff was a Norwegian jazz singer who had way too short a life. She struggled with drugs and alcohol and killed herself. The Norwegian jazz scene was very rough at the time, but she’s got this song, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and I feel like I could've written it. It’s so melancholic and her voice carries so much pain and sorrow, but is still comforting. It’s like a mirror, reflecting her pain.
You’re not alone in those feelings, something that almost explains the sorrow of wanting to belong to something. It’s not even something in the lyrics, but you can just instantly feel like someone else feels the way you do. It builds empathy."
5. Susanna And The Magical Orchestra - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Melody Mountain, 2006)
"Susanna And The Magical Orchestra made this cover record called Melody Mountain where they cover a load of classic rock’n’roll music, turned into these lush lullabies. It’s all very slow and beautiful, and my favourite track is Love Will Tear Us Apart.
She explores the songs’ sensitive sides, and it kind of opened the original up to me in a new way. It’s one of my top albums – I love every single track."
6. Dimmu Borgir - The Serpentine Offering (In Sorte Diaboli, 2007)
"DImmu Borgir were my entrance to black metal. The symphonic parts really helped me get into that music. The Serpentine Offering was the first track I learned to vocalise. I was 13 when In Sorte Diaboli came out and I’d found this black book – there’s no real English translation, but it’s basically a book of spells and how to do magic. I found it in my parent’s attic and as a teenager I thought of myself as a Satanist because according to the book if you did any of the spells, you and your firstborn would always belong to Satan. I kind of built my own religion around it and that album was an amplifier for everything I believed in at the time.
People should believe what they like, but for me religion at its core is bad and makes people powerless, pitting them against each other. I wouldn’t say I’m a Satanist, because that’s also an established religion, but Satan to me represents this anti-establishment thing, he’s a punk figure that turns things upside down. I didn’t read the Satanic bible or anything like that. It was a playground for my imagination – I really did spells too, like peeing on a churchyard. It was mostly just to get the boys I wanted.”
7. Edvard Grieg - In The Hall Of The Mountain King (Peer Gynt, 1875)
"I Dovregubbens Hall by Edvard Grieg is a classical piece and to me that’s the start of Norwegian black metal. It’s about a huge troll living in a mountain and it really fired up my imagination with all these myths. It’s interesting to me how close metal and classical music are."
8. Mayhem - Freezing Moon (De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, 1994)
"Mayhem’s Freezing Moon is the black metal anthem, to me. It’s perfect; it’s ice cold, political but also uses this imagery of the moon that I really appreciate. The vocals are chilling, it’s so vivid! It’s so cinematic in my head, the whole album is legendary and they were a huge inspiration on Witch Club Satan.
They weren’t even amazing at playing their instruments, but I enjoy the punk rawness of it. Obviously they also have this horrible history, with the killings and church burnings. When we first started we went to meet [Mayhem bassist] Necrobutcher at his home in a rural area. We needed to understand the history and the inside perspective of the scene because we didn’t want to go into the political minefield traditional Norwegian black metal bands left. It was nice to see he was a kind person with great values."
9. Anna Von Hausswolff - Dolore di Orsini (All Thoughts Fly, 2020)
"Anna Von Hausswolff has this incredible track, Dolore di Orsini. I’m really weak for organ music – I think it actually might be my favourite instrument. There’s something almost spiritual about the sound of it, as its part of these huge rituals in life like funerals.
There’s something about it that’s massive and she uses it so well. We always listen to this track before we go on-stage as it gets us in the mood. It’s the heaviest thing ever."
10. Slomosa - Battling Guns (Tundra Rock, 2024)
"I loved Slomosa’s Tundra Rock, particularly the song Battling Guns. Music is in a weird state at the moment where talking about politics isn’t sexy, like it’s a turn off. I don’t understand that at all – to me rock’n’roll is all about saying what you want, freedom of speech. Fuck the system! So I’m really happy when bands dare to put those elements back in.”
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