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After having spent almost ten years on European battlefields, Icelandic creative native Palli Banine was returned to his motherland on the breath of cosmic winds. Having barely survived the hardest year of his life, he found him self beached up in Ultima Thule, cut, bruised and bleeding, technically more dead than alive. He picked him self up and started walking to town - towards the light, there he set about finding his new life’s purpose. After having burned his former life down to the ground, and gone through a complete ego death and rebirth. He found himself on the streets of Reykjavik with a broken guitar, four song demos and a suitcase full of someone else's clothes. Death had rejected his letter of resignation and returned him to life through a baptism of fire. In the ashen ruins of his former life, he found the mental entrance to his inner being, and therein he found the well of creativity. He felt the music pour back in to his life, and decided to complete the record that he had started while living in central Europe. Inspired by the dark arts and his renewed sense of purpose, he called on the ancient pagan space gods of his nation, and on friends and allies for help. Men and spirits joined forces, and the record that was conceived is titled ‘Taking Reality by Surprise’. It was on this sonic path that he found his artistic clan - Horde. Thus named because its structure is more free flowing than traditional, the central axis being Palli Banine, its instigator. It’s more of a tribe than a band. The members of Horde are free to come and go, and most have other bands or musical outlets to work with, so there’s a certain freshness, or sense of adventure to the musical elements involved. The record has contributions from musicians from bands such as, Singapore Sling, Sólstafir, HAM, The Brian Jonestown massacre, The dead skeletons, Fufanu, Café Neon, The third sound and Just Another Snake Cult to name a few. After quite a daring journey, with several course corrections, is the record ready, and the concept behind its creation solid. It is a hard rocking trippy voyage of a rock n roll record. Inspired by love and death, dark romance, mythology and deep studies of the psyche. All mixed up with a healthy dose of filthy psychedelia, post punk and underground rock n roll. It even has traces of black and post metal. The record spans a long time. The earlier songs where written years before the later songs, so it’s a journey through time as well as space. The record starts in one place and ends up in a completely different space altogether. A kind of a warped roller coaster ride through the life and times of its main creator and lyricist Palli Banine. Because of the way Horde operates, the musical dynamic in the creative method is ever changing and evolving around its creator and collaborators. This means that the very musical process is also a living organism, that has its own unknown evolutionary trajectory.

To dare a dream
To build a ship
To hoist a sail
To raise your banner
To set your fire
against an ocean,
of human emptiness.
That is a life worthy of the gods.

Palli Banine is an Icelandic artist and musician. Until now he’s been most famous in his native land of Iceland, for being the lead vocalist and founding member of highly influential rave rock band Bubbleflies, as well as being an audio visual artist on the global scene. He graduated with a BFA from the mixed media department of the Icelandic Academy of the Arts in 2001. And with an MFA from the Transmedia department at Sint Lukas in Brussels in 2007, where he was based for almost 10 years. Palli Banine’s work, can be described as a tight rope walk on the edge of our dualistic reality. It walks the line between light and dark, male and female, heart and mind, myth and fact, the real and the unreal. His artistic explorations dance in the twilight of superstition and science, as well as the grotesque and the beautiful. One of Palli’s many interests is the use of mythology in contemporary society. And the morphing of information as seen in the media and popular culture - or from a historic point of view. He then filters these elements through the artistic process. It’s in the balancing act between these opposing forces that the work emerges, regardless of the medium. Palli’s work has been exhibited, performed or installed in Canada, China, the USA, England, Germany, Belgium, France ,Iceland, Holland, and Austria. Palli’s work features in private collections in Canada
Iceland,Belgium and Germany, to name a few. Palli has also worked as a curator and as a producer on numerous exhibitions, performances and art events over the years. He has collaborated and worked with a number of artists, musicians, curators and art professionals on various projects and exhibitions, across the globe.

Horde is a 21st century manifestation of an ancient force that has been trawling with and through humanity since the birth of civilisation. In modern terms it could be described as a collaborative platform where ideas can be exchanged between the various musicians and artist involved. It is an ever changing and living organism, that has it’s own aesthetic and style. It’s from this alchemical experiment that the music is extracted. Horde is a multi disciplinary force reawakened by the mixed media artist Palli Banine. It could be described as a tribe of like minded creative people who come together to create music, and the surrounding imagery. It could also be called a rock n roll band, or a musical and artistic entity with an ever evolving sphere of creative interests and production. It is from this horde of artist and musicians that the live band is being assembled, for live performances and other related activities.

The first manifestation of Horde are:

Palli Banine, Aron Þór Arnarsson, Aurélien Chouzenoux, Kolbeinn Soffíusson, Rafael Daniel Vias, Leigh Lawson, Halldór Ágúst Björnsson, Johan Lenaerts, Teuk Henri, Orri Einarsson, Aðalbjörn Tryggvason, Ragnar Helgi Olafsson, Borgar Magnason, Sigtryggur Jónsson, Valdimar Johannsson, Henrik Baldvin Björnsson, Davíð Magnússon, Erling Bang, Arnljótur Sigurðsson, Guðmundur Helgi Jónsson, Egill Örn Karlsson, Hákon Aðalsteinsson, Flosi Þorgeirsson, Nína Ruth Knudsen, Guðmann Þór Bjargmundsson. Steinar Fjeldsted. Thoracious Appotite

Horde’s first long player is titled ‘Taking Reality by Surprise’.It seeks to investigate places where underground visions get to the truth, a poetic reaction to the times and human circumstances, of the 21st century. It’s a collaborative project where Horde’s central axis Palli Banine has teamed up with friends and colleagues from various musical projects and artistic disciplines, to create a raw, seductive and pure offering of dark and hard rock ’n’ roll. It’s a space where the heretical and the sacred clash on the moonlit crossroads of good and evil, where dreams and nightmares collide on the edge of the imagination. It is a true celebration of the opposing  polarities of human existence, an intense journey and at times explosive, in its determination to get it on. More music is being written and recorded. Horde is currently working on ‘the Laughter in the woods’ a six song EP, a home for the more introspective songs. The writing for the next LP is in its initiatory phase when this is written with several demos already completed....