Secret Archives of the Vatican

When I Look To The West

Greetings! Here’s a new single release called When I Look To The West. It’s as genre fluid as all our music, with elements of dark folk and ambient folk, with hints of medieval flavour and a wistful, soundtrack feel. It’s on all main streaming and download sites. We hope you like it! https://open.spotify.com/track/3SCyLK3amCgcGXgvEGmzPl?si=ed18693002a6446e

Here is a new release from Thousand Yard Prayer – The Eternal Quest. It’s a five track album/EP but the Bandcamp download version has a couple of extra tunes. The release dates are 7 April on Bandcamp, 8 April everywhere else, all mainstream streaming and downlaod sites. All of the tracks have videos and these can be found on our YouTube channel and also on Bandcamp. There isn’t an overarching…

Drums Of A Dark Age

Films and TV shows like Vikings, Vikings: Valhalla, The Last Kingdom and The Northman have raised awareness of our pre-medieval history. We’re exploring that history and the mythologies of that era. Here is our latest album release, Drums Of A Dark Age, a collection of tunes using mostly Dark Age, pre-medieval, neofolk instruments and sounds but with drum and bass beats. Drums Of A Dark Age is…

Whale Bone Dragon Stone Episode 2

Here’s the second episode of our new podcast/show, Whale Bone Dragon Stone. We continue to explore some of the genres and artists we’ve been discovering during this last year or two, such as Norse folk, Celtic folk, dark folk, ritual folk, dungeon synth, neomedieval music, fantasy music, RPG music and similar musical styles. Tracks 1 Sowulo – Wydd Webba2 Secret Archives Of The Vatican – The…

Time Only Knows – Secret Archives of the Vatican Podcast 154

Although we’ve recently started a new podcast, Whale Bone Dragon Stone, we are still committed to recording our traditional Secret Archives of the Vatican podcast. Here is episode 154! As always, it’s an eclectic mix of tunes, generally with some non-western influence. Tracks 1 Sowulo – Brego in Brēoste (Byzantium Version)2 Alina Gingertail – Prince of Persia (Time Only Knows)3 Faolan –…

Whale Bone Dragon Stone Episode 1

We’ve just started a new podcast type show on MixCloud to explore some of the genres and artists we’ve been discovering during this last year or two, such as Norse folk, Celtic folk, dark folk, ritual folk, dungeon synth, neomedieval music, fantasy music, RPG music and similar musical styles. We’ll still be producing the long-running Secret Archives of the Vatican podcast as well! Tracks 1 Aulë…

The Battle Of Brunanburh

We’ve been releasing a short series of tracks where Viking era sounds meet drum and bass beats. The Battle Of Brunanburh is the third single. In April 2022, we will release an album called Drums OF A Dark Age with our series of singles and some extra tracks. The Battle of Brunanburh was fought in 937 between Æthelstan, King of England, and an alliance of Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin;…

Vikings and Byzantines…

This new release by Sowulo captures SO much of the music that Secret Archives of the Vatican loves! In the last couple of years we have been exploring northern European folk, premedieval and medieval traditions, in some ways a departure from our more traditional interests in middle eastern flavoured music. We’ve always had an interest, though, in where medieval music and middle eastern music…

Phat Of The Land – Podcast episode 153

It’s been about nine months since our last podcast episode, really for no reason other than being busy with other things and our musical interests going a different direction. However, although we add new genres and traditions to our musical interests, we don’t stop liking what we already liked. So, here is episode 153 of our podcast and it explores the same broad transglobal breakbeat dub…

Peredur [Dark Age Music, neofolk, ritual folk]

Greetings, people! Here’s a tune we haven’t released as a single but which will be on our Paladin album due for release Friday 7 January. It’s called Peredur and references the pre-medieval Arthurian legends. This is the sound of the Dark Ages (which, of course, weren’t dark). Neofolk, amplified history, featuring tagelharpa, frame drums, a Saxon lyre and some post-dubstep electronica.…

A release from our other entity...

Back in 2002, in the era of CDs, marketing a new release took ages so you couldn’t release an album or track every day like you can now. It took time to manufacture, print, advertise, distribute etc. Secret Archives of the Vatican was prolific and had been busy with releases so there was a need to use another name to get some new music out. Thousand Yard Prayer was essentially Vince’s project and…

New Secret Archives of the Vatican releases in November 2021...

We’ve released two tracks a week apart. One is medieval in feel, Stronghold, and one is Dark Age, pre-medieval in feel, Sköll the Sun​-​Devourer. We’re aware that we’re exploring new musical areas but we hope that long-time followers will come on this journey with us. In fact, we’ve always had a medieval influence on our music and there were medieval tunes on one or two of our early cassette…

The Oath That Binds

Here’s our latest single release. An Icelandic woman once said: Ég sór eiðinn sem bindur Our music is genre-defying, featuring anything from Viking, Saxon, middle eastern and medieval instruments to bass electronica. This is neofolk, Dark Age Music, music for those with imaginations. It’s also on Spotify.

Hjarta Slær Hægt is Icelandic for Heart Beats Slow. This tune, like many of our current tunes, features frame drums and throat singing. There is a mandola and a bombarde too! Unlike many of our recent tunes, however, there’s a powerful electronica base (and bass) to this track. Our worlds merge.We accidentally released this one week after our previous release, Thrymheim. There should be about…

We’ve been quiet on here lately, mostly because a lot of our effort has been going into Instagram and YouTube instead and because almost no-one ever reads our blog or responds. Anyway, we should rectify that, somehow. Here’s a single, Thrymheim, due out Friday 24 September 2021. It continues with our current explorations of northern European traditions. If you’d like to download it, we’d suggest…

Hiraeth is out now

Hiraeth is out now on all major streaming and download sites. We’re very happy with this collection of tunes. It brings together our newer neofolk, Dark Ages, music with elements of the electronica we’ve released in recent years. We think our older and newer fans will like it.Hiraeth is a Welsh word, hard to translate, meaning a spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was, a nostalgia for…

The Great Heathen Army

Here’s the second single from our forthcoming album, Hiraeth. Its’s exploring slightly new musical areas for us and features band member Louis Counter on bass guitar, an instrument we haven’t used very much in our musical history.