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Now five albums deep, Harakiri for the Sky was founded by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Matthias Sollak (at right) and singer J.J. in 2011. Sollak composes the music and J.J. pens the band's lyrics.

Austrian black-metal magus Matthias Sollak realizes his panoramic vision for Mӕre via cues from prog, shoegaze, and neo-classical.

For all the black-metal bona fides Matthias Sollak has accumulated as a guitarist, his musical range extends into areas you might not expect from a 31-year-old who's been running with headbangers for most of his life. Even during his long stint with Bifröst, the band he co-founded in his native Salzburg, Austria, at the age of 16, he brought elements as far afield as bagpipes, folk instruments, and keyboard samples to a freewheeling and unpredictable sound that helped set the group apart from their self-avowed "pagan metal" contemporaries.

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