Wolf Rune, the first solo recording in Sinikka Langeland’s ECM discography, sheds new light on the multifaceted work of the Norwegian folk singer and kantele player. Few artists embody the spirit of place as resolutely as Sinikka and her songs, compositions, poem settings and arrangements reflect, in different ways, the histories and mysteries of Finnskogen, Norway’s ‘Finnish forest’, which has long been both her home base and inspirational source.
The new album incorporates rune songs, spells and incantations, religious tunes and traditional folk dances, as well as verses that testify to the interlinked nature of all things. This pantheistic spirit is echoed in Sinikka’s choice of writers – from 13th century medieval mystic and philosopher Meister Eckhart (quoted and adapted on “When I was The Forest”) to contemporary playwright and poet Jon Fosse (“Row My Ocean”). Langeland’s own lyrics, too, have an almost shamanistic vibrancy as on “The Eye of the Blue Whale”: “The eye of the blue whale/It was already here/we were without a body/ swathed in sinew, flesh and blood/we were without words.”
Powerful images require appropriate musical settings and on Wolf Rune, Langeland expands the range and reach of her instruments accordingly. Ancient tones can be heard here, as well as sonorities that take the kantele toward new expressive areas. This journey, from the archaic through the worlds of Nordic folk to the experimental, has become an exploratory thread in Langeland’s work. Her earlier ECM recordings – beginning with Starflowers in 2006 - instigated collaboration with improvisers; in the process, her own playing has become emboldened.
Sinikka is playing three kanteles, of very different character and capacity, on the present recording. Her 39-string concert kantele, built by Hannu Koistinen, is heard on “Polsdance from Finnskogen”, “Row My Ocean”, “The Eye Of The Blue Whale”, “When I Was The Forest”, “Don’t Come to Me With The Entire Truth”, “The Girl In The Headlands” and “Wolf Rune”. Over the course of the album Sinikka makes full use of the instrument’s five and a half octaves. “The range is almost like an entire piano. Many people are surprised by how big and deep its bass is,” Langeland notes.
“Winter Rune” features both the concert kantele and a 5-string kantele made by Kaijo Säteri. The 5-string is also heard on the two “Kantele Prayer” pieces. Sinikka: “It’s a challenge to figure out how much music you can create with a few strings.” A 15-string kantele built by Erkki Okkonen is played with a bow on the opening “Moose Rune”, and plucked on “I See Your Light”. On “When I Was The Forest” the use of an E-bow coaxes new colours and textures from the concert kantele. But here, too, Langeland keeps in mind music’s time-honoured role of responding to and echoing the sounds of nature.
Sinikka Langeland was born in Kirkenær in southeastern Norway in 1961, and studied piano, guitar and contemporary folksong. In 1981 she discovered the kantele (traditional 39-string dulcimer), which would become her main musical instrument along with the voice. She has said: “My Karelian mother told me about the instrument when I was a child, and one day we went to Finland to find one for me. I had not heard it before I got one. First I played just for fun, but after a while I felt a real sense of bonding with the instrument.” The sound-world conjured up by Langeland’s canteles seems to carry archaic echoes older than ‘folk’ tradition.
After studies in Paris and Olso, she became absorbed in a research project to sift through archives of old songs and music from Finnskogen and expand her “folk” repertoire to include rune songs, incantations, and old melodies from Finland and Karelia, as well as medieval ballads and religious songs. Langeland’s songs often focus on the relationship between people and nature.
She recorded her first solo CD in 1994, and made her ECM debut in 2007 with Starflowers:“There are jewels everywhere on this arresting example of ego-free music-making,” enthused the Irish Times. She followed this up with Maria’s Song, in the company of two distinguished classical musicians – organist Kare Nordstoga and "giant of the Nordic viola" Lars Anders Tomter – interweaving folk melodies with the timeless strains of J S Bach. The Land that is Not is, like Starflowers, a quintet album, which in this case draws its inspirations from poets Edith Södergran (1892–1923) and Olav Håkonson Hauge (1908–94).
Langeland’s 2015 album,The Half-Finished Heaven, is a suite of songs largely based around “the mystery and joy of everyday encounters with animals in the forest”. John Kelman described it as “an album of touching melancholy, haunting beauty and oftentimes completely unexpected flights of improvisational fancy from a quartet of simpatico players”. In 2010 Sinikka Langeland received the Rolf Gammleng Prize and in 2012 the Sibelius Prize.
Photo Credits:
(1)-(2) Sinikka Langeland
(unknown/website).
