Paysage d'Hiver


Paysage d'Hiver is an ambient black metal band from Burgdorf, Canton of Berne, Switzerland. Formed in 1997, the sole member is Wintherr, an alias of Tobias Möckl, who also plays with Darkspace as Wroth. "Paysage d'Hiver" is French, meaning "landscape of winter"; indeed, their songs' lyrics address primarily winter, darkness, and astral projection. Wintherr has cited the Burzum albums Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem, among others, as an inspiration for his music. All of Paysage d’Hiver’s own material is released through Kunsthall Produktionen, a label Wintherr runs together with Nimosh of the band Nordlicht.
As described on the Kunsthall website, all of the band's releases are connected, in that they tell different pieces of a story describing a realm known as "Paysage d'Hiver", from which the band takes its name.

Musical style

Paysage d'Hiver's music is known for its extremely lo-fi, raw production style, while musically it tends to alternate between, or even combine, black metal and ambient music.
The production style is a deliberate artistic decision by Wintherr as "the atmosphere is the most important aspect. So the sound is more of an artistic approach than anything else. This kind of sound really opens me up to the possibilities of the imagination than clear sounding instruments would."

Discography

All of Paysage d'Hiver's releases prior to the 2020 album, Im Wald, are classified by the band as demos. All releases after the Steineiche CD-R were originally exclusively released on cassette and limited to 200 copies each, but were later re-released on CD in unlimited quantities. Schattengang, Die Festung and Paysage d'Hiver have also been released on vinyl, each limited to 300 copies. On the highly limited nature of the cassette and vinyl releases, Wintherr stated he considers them to be "collector's items," with the CD versions making it easier for wider audiences to hear the music.

Studio albums