Paysage d'Hiver

About

Also known as: Paysage d' Hiver

Named after the French phrase for 'winter landscape', Paysage d'Hiver is a one man atmospheric black metal project from the canton of Bern in Switzerland, entirely the work of Tobias Möckl, who records under the alias Wintherr. The project has been running since 1997, and Möckl has credited Burzum's Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem as key inspirations. Every instrument on every release, from guitars and bass to violin and programmed drums, is handled by him alone. What makes Paysage d'Hiver distinctive is its deliberately raw, lo fi production, which Wintherr treats as an artistic choice in itself because atmosphere, in his words, is the most important aspect. The music moves freely between dense black metal and pure ambient, sometimes pulling in funeral doom or drone elements. All releases tie together as chapters in a narrative following a lone wanderer through a realm called Paysage d'Hiver, with landscape oriented cover art that maps onto the wanderer's journey. The 2024 album Die Berge and the single Urgrund are among the most recent additions to that ongoing story.