The A-Z of Fjord Fuzz Symbology & October Range Revamp Teaser

Sep 24, 202108:00 by

Stefan Karlsson

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I am fortunate to have known Fjord Fuzz’s Daniel Thornhill for a few years now - leading up to my original Fjord Fuzz article back in August of 2019. I often act as a sounding board for Daniel’s new ideas and circuit explorations where he invariably comes to his own conclusions. I do feel though that I’ve instilled a particular discipline in the consistent application of symbols - which is very evident in the latest versions of pedals - as we shall see. For me Daniel is one of, if not The hardest working man in the industry - as no one tweaks and improves, and iterates their circuits to the same degree as Daniel continually does.

I have amassed 7 Fjord Fuzz pedals to date - and was due to get in a few more as soon as Daniel had settled on final versions for his range. This was originally due to happen at the end of last year, but Daniel has spent the best part of a year still continually improving those circuits - leading toward the grand finale of an October 1st Range Revamp Launch featuring in addition a brand new Berserk Fuzz variety - which details will be revealed on that date!

To celebrate that wonderful achievement and mark the event - I thought I should do a brief explanatory teaser article in a similar mould to what I recently did for Blackhawk Amplifiers - where I explain the meaning and derivation of those symbols. Most of the range has been finessed to a degree - with some slight internal as well as functional and cosmetic tweaks - all those details will be revealed on October 1st - this is really just about the symbols and to give you some time to get ready for the big launch!

Symbol Origins

This direct from Daniel :

"My symbolism is based in modern narration of Norse Mythology."

"I intentionally avoided original, authentic spellings and symbols, as well as runes. Why? Back when I started Fjord Fuzz, the Marvel thing hadn’t really happened yet and all anyone knew of Norse Mythology was the symbolism as co-opted by Nazis and right-wing lunatics. I even called ODIN “WODAN” for a while as in Norway a bunch of absolute losers decided to form a racist vigilante group and called it “Sons of Odin”. Their idea was to 'protect ladies from predatory muslims at night time'."

"Luckily the group was as disorganised and incompetent as all Nazis are and quickly disbanded, leaving the ODIN name open to me again. ODIN was known as 'The wanderer' and actually appears as basically a Turkish immigrant in Norse mythology, so I thought using a name more closely associated with this aspect to his persona would be a decent way to distance my stuff from extremist symbolism."

"Also I think it fits well with my products to mix old original mythology, with modern, local spelling and iconography as that’s pretty much how I do electronics design."

"I mix old ideas with new solutions"

The 5 Pedals

BERSERK : comes from the Berserkers (Berserkjar), a particularly fierce clan of Bear-skin-wearing Vikings. They were said to fuel their rage on Amanita Muscaria / Fly Agaric mushrooms, but that seems fairly unlikely - even though there is some anecdotal evidence of a tonic supposedly formulate from said mushrooms. Regardless of the mythology - it’s a cool look, and so Daniel decided to go with it. The new Fjord Fuzz Berserk will be revealed on October 1st.

BIFROST : is the rainbow bridge to Valhalla (Bifröst / Valhöll). It is also the link between realms in Norse Mythology, so Daniel needed iconography that alludes to rainbows. BIFROST was also intended as the link between your pedal board and your amp. There’s seven concentric circles obviously! The Fjord Fuzz Bifrost is Daniel's own perfect Dual Feedback Delay with simple stripped down Embla Fuzz that you can blend in to your preferences.

EMBLA : was the first woman in Norse Mythology. And Daniel's very first pedal. It’s also the name of Daniel's first daughter and means Elm Tree. He took the icon directly from one of his wife’s tattoos! The Fjord Fuzz Embla is a very heavily evolved Bee Baa circuit which renders as an almost overdrive-like Fuzz with lots of range and tonal variation - from subtle and elegant to full-on thick and buzzing - designed to be the perfect everyday fuzz!

FENRIS : is the very scary wolf monster in Norse mythology. It needed a wolf, obviously. The Fjord Fuzz Fenris is Daniel's highly evolved six-knob take on a Super Fuzz.

ODIN : is the all-seeing, one-eyed god. The sort of illuminati thing fits well here. The Fjord Fuzz Odin is Daniel's very smart one-knob, dual-footswitch evolution of the Foxx Tone Machine circuit.

Note - that all of Daniel's fuzzes are significantly evolved from their original circuit inspirations - some moving into entirely new territory. They also tend not to have any artificial limiters on the circuit - which means they can typically go far rawer and raunchier than roughly similar genre equivalents!