A strong duality between worlds.
A balance between the beautiful and the harsh, serenity and chaos, between an outside and an inner world, between our human life and the spiritual origins.
Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Sylvaine’s music deals with the extreme range of emotions this human existence has to offer, as a result of being in constant conflict with oneself and struggling to adapt to this place we call our own.
The project serves as an emotional catharsis for the artist, revealing the eternal longing for something more residing within its melodies, capturing the feeling of being trapped and restraint by the human form.

To speak to Sylvaine, the one woman multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, and composer born Kathrine Shepard, is to speak to some spirit that exists beyond the veil of convention and stereotypes.
This is not a woman playing to the vogue dark melodic folklorist trope that has become so prevalent in the metal scene but rather, this is a woman who is a serious and classically trained composer and arranger whose songs, that originate on unplugged electric guitars in lavender and black bedrooms, end up exploding against the unlimited conventions of what modern music can accomplish.

For some time, Kathrine Shepard has been seen as the petite pixie of the Norwegian black gaze scene but her small eleven features and lightheartedness belie the woman warrior behind Nova, her complex and personal fourth release.
Following her 2018 Atoms Aligned Coming Undone release, Sylvaine (a play on the name of one of her beloved French poets, Paul Verlaine) gives us Nova, an album that is both a musical and personal reawakening of a singer/composer finding her way in this world.