A low resonance, with sparse bell tones in the air — the first half-minute of Traust hangs mostly inside this dark tone.

Sharper bright strikes now, well spaced — each one gives the dark a brief edge.

Then a shaken count settles in, quiet and regular — the first thing here the body can actually lean on.

A voice enters with the First Merseburg Charm, old words full of binding and loosening, sung over the drum and the drone.

What gets me is how little the music acts out — the words keep naming bonds and loosenings, and underneath, the voice, drum, and drone just hold one steady procedure.

The singing stops, and the drum and that low tone simply carry on — the floor stays after the words step off it.

Then the count turns into the form itself: 'Þann gel ek þér fyrstan' — the first charm, sung as a direct address.

And right behind it, a rinse — the singer washes off the theft and anger of enemies.

The second charm, and the setting hasn't moved an inch — same shaken count, same low tone, a new danger set down on identical ground.

The third charm arrives, and the music still holds to the same steady ground.

The fourth charm keeps the sequence intact: the same direct address, then the same cleansing refrain before the count moves on.

The fifth charm arrives, still inside the same procedure — numbered, spoken, and carried by the unchanging drum and low tone.

Fifth rinse — same words as always, and the count underneath doesn't change for them.

The sixth charm comes next, the same direct address set into the same steady pulse.

Seven arrives in the same even voice — another numbered charm, handed down without a change in the ground beneath it.

The eighth charm keeps the pattern intact: the numbered opening, the held tone, the shaken count.

The ninth arrives as the last numbered charm in this run. By now the repeated opening and the repeated rinse have become the thing the music is guarding.

And the opening chant comes back — 'Eiris sazun idisi.' The same words that began the singing, now carrying nine dangers and nine rinses behind them. Nothing got louder; the return itself holds the weight.

A long stretch now where nothing new arrives and nothing needs to — drum, voice, and low resonance fused into one continuous carried thing.

Past nine minutes it starts easing back — the rhythmic mass thinning from the inside, fewer pieces turning, nothing torn away.

And then quiet. The count didn't break; it stopped turning — and the silence keeps the shape of what was just here.