With Ghosts of Europa, the Nowegian artist Mortiis is back—and he’s not in a hurry.
The first single from the upcoming album (out June 26 via Prophecy Productions) doesn’t try to grab you straight away. It creeps in, layer by layer, building a thick, slightly cold atmosphere that feels more like a place than a track. You don’t get a chorus to hold on to. You get a mood that slowly pulls you under.
The collaborators fit perfectly into that world. Sarah Jezebel Deva (The Kovenant, Cradle of Filth) brings that familiar, floating voice that always adds a bit of ghostly weight. Laurie Ann Haus gives the track a more cinematic edge, while Thorsten Quaeschning (Tangerine Dream) quietly stretches things out with synths and sequencers that never show off but do a lot in the background.
What makes this one work is how it keeps moving without ever getting busy. Sounds come in, fade out, shift around. It feels like it’s constantly adjusting itself. Mortiis (Håvard Ellefsen) said the track went through a lot of versions, and you can tell: it doesn’t feel locked into a formula. It feels like something that slowly found its shape over time.
There’s also this subtle choral layer running through it, but it never turns into something big or dramatic. It stays restrained, a bit distant, even cold at times. That’s exactly where it hits. No big moments, no easy hooks, just atmosphere that sticks with you.
If this is where the album is heading, it’s less about going back and more about digging deeper into that sound and stretching it out.
And the genre question? That’s never really been the point with Mortiis. Across distinct eras, Era I-III and later Era 0: he’s moved from dungeon synth to industrial, dark ambient and even metal. Ghosts Of Europa leans closest to that Era II sound, but shifts between phases rather than settling. And with Mortiis, that can change again at any moment.
The video is out now as well and keeps things just as minimal and eerie. Nothing flashy, it just lets the track breathe in its natural habitat.