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Artist: Sinikka Langeland
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Sinikka Langeland:

Wind and Sun

Being in a room with Sinikka Langeland is like being charmed into a northern forest under a night sky. Her presence and her voice are magical enough, but when she plays her kantele you can almost feel nature itself quivering with joy. - Fiona Talkington, Songlines

Few artists have embodied the idea of the spirit of place as comprehensively as Sinikka Langeland whose music, performances, research and recordings have given a new profile to the culture of Finnskogen – the “Forest of the Finns” on Norway’s border with Sweden. Half-Finnish herself, Langeland (born in Grue in 1961) plays the Finnish national instrument, the kantele, and draws upon older traditions of folk music including rune songs and incantations in the creation of vibrantly new work. Her songs give voice to the interdependence of humanity, the natural world of plants and animals and the world of spirits. Sinikka’s deeply-rooted music has often branched out to connect and communicate with key exponents of other arts – improvisers from the jazz world, classical musicians, poets, visual artists. Sometimes, reviewer Audun Vinger suggested of recent performances at Vossajazz, Sinikka seems “ultra-hip, like a Finnish Forest Alice Coltrane. At other times, we are in the Middle Ages, in the church, in the jazz club...” The expressive arc of the music extends from the archaic to the creatively forward-looking.

Sinikka Langeland:

Wolf Rune

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."