Clemens Wijers


Clemens "Ardek" Wijers is a Dutch keyboardist, pianist, and composer best known as the keyboardist of Dutch symphonic black metal band Carach Angren. Before Carach Angren, Wijers played with Dark Mutation and then Vaultage where he met Dennis "Seregor" Droomers and they began Carach Angren as a side project, when the two connected over a shared love of horror and storytelling. Later Vaultage disbanded when Carach Angren became increasingly successful.

Biography

Clemens is the older brother of Carach Angren's former drummer Ivo "Namtar" Wijers. He first started playing piano at the age of 7 and played with a local youth choir throughout his teen years. He grew interested in metal in his secondary school years and joined a band as a way of combining his new interest with his classical background. He also studied music at the Tilburg Conservatory in 2002 before forming Vaultage in 2003, and later co-forming Carach Angren. He has also completed a certificate in Cinematic Orchestration, taught by William Boston. Wijers has mentioned that he is a fan of orchestral soundtracks from films and video games, and that he was a big gamer in the 1990s who loved video game soundtracks.

Musical Work

Alongside Carach Angren, Wijers has also released a solo album titled "Worlds" that is mainly a combination of industrial and classical music tracks. He has composed the soundtrack for a number of short films, including Firefly and the Coffee Machine by John Michael Wilyat; an animated short about a series of drawings by an eight-year-old girl coming to life. He also wrote music on Lindemann's album "Skills in Pills," and has written music for Pain and Ex Deo. He also offers piano lessons through his website. Typically, Wijers writes the composition for Carach Angren's music while bandmate Dennis "Seregor" Droomers writes the lyrics and stories.

Discography

Solo