Yeah, time for some more Sámi joik. Elin Teilus is a Sámi singer from Sweden whom I’ve discovered relatively recently, about last month, I guess. She has roots both in Udtja in the Swedish part of Sápmi as well as in Gothenburg. This song is a very traditional joik in that it has no lyrics, and, as its title suggests, it is dedicated to a person, as a lot of joiks are, more exactly to Elin’s relative – Nils Henrik Teilus – about whom she writes a bit in the description of the below video. I’ve already written how I really like it about joik that people can have their own joiks reflect those about/for whom they are, and this one sounds deeply personal as well.
For today I have a Sámi song for you. I’ve heard it a couple weeks ago in NRK Sápmi which is the Norwegian Sámi radio station, and I really liked it right away. Sadly, I don’t know anything about the singer, not even where in Sápmii she lives – Norway, Sweden or Finland. – Since I don’t speak Sámi (yet) myself, I also don’t know what the title of this song means exactly, but I was able to find out that olggos means outside, and while I don’t know what vuolgu means specifically, it appears to be a form of the verb vuolgit which means to leave or to depart.
I have mentioned it several times on here how one of the things that I like most about the Sámi joik is how very well it blends with all sorts of contemporary genres, better than any other type of folk music that I’m familiar with. ANd I’ve shared with you guys songs that blend joik together with such genres as electronic music, pop, hip-hop or bluegrass. Today it’s time for a fusion of joik with jazz.
This joik tune comes from an album called Árbi, which means heritage in Sámi, the result of a collaboration between Sámi singer Ellen A. Oskal and jazz musician, composer and guitarist Frode Barth, featuring various other jazz musicians. It includes joiks of various people, who I believe must be Ellen A. Oskal’s ancestors or family. Despite I’m not really a fan of jazz, I do like this album. This particular piece, as you can figure out from the title, is the joik of someone called Sara Helena Bergstrøm Oskal, and it also features French drummer Manu Katché, Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, and Norwegian saxophone player Trygve Seim.
As I said yesterday when sharing a song by the Swedish Sámi singer Katarina Rimpi, I was thinking about sharing a song by her band Jarŋŋa at some point, and I figured that since I’ve been sharing quite a lot of Sámi music lately anyway so why not do it right away. Jarŋŋa is the Sámi word for the widest part of a lake, and this band consists of the aforementioned Katarina Rimpi, as well as another singer called Mandy Senger. This is my favourite joik tune by them.
How do you feel about yet another Sámi joik, this time from Sweden?
Katarina Rimpi was one of the first Swedish Sámi artists that I’ve discovered when I was first introduced to Sámi music in general, and I’ve really liked her right away. But then at some point I sort of forgot about her music and hadn’t been listening to it for a long time, until I was reminded of it recently and was happy to sort of rediscover it.
Katarina Rimpi is from Jokkmokk in Luleå in Sweden, and is a very versatile person, as she is not only a singer and joiker but also a painter and a craftswoman, and has a degree in technical physics. Her music is inspired by Arctic landscapes. She has also founded a band called Jarŋŋa which means the widest part of a lake in Luleå Sami, together with another singer called Mandy Senger. I am also planning on sharing with you one song by Jarŋŋa with Katarina Rimpi as the vocalist. She must clearly have a close affinity with lakes, rivers, and perhaps other bodies of water as well, since this song is about a river (Julevädno is the Sámi name of the Lule river), her band’s name has to do with a lake, and the song I plan on sharing with you from Jarŋŋa’s repertoire is alsoo about a river. Funnily enough, for the longest time I used to think that this is a Christmas song, because it has “jul-“ in it and jul means Christmas in Swedish so my brain jumped to that conclusion without even thinking whether the Sámi word for Christmas is anŧ similar. 😀
The river flows, whispers to me Julevädno speaks to my heart Voice of the river leads me Julevädno touches my soul The well lies far up west Pours water into the river day by day The water of this river is sacred to me This river valley the place I want to be
Clear water like silver Rushing with force through all times The soul of the river whispers to me Julevädno I love and honour you Nothing takes the soul of that river The clear silver water As long as the water flows And the rushing sound of streaming water Can be heard There will be hope and comfort in our lives
I think I have already mentioned how I think that of all the peoples speaking my favourite languages, the Sámi seem to be most fond of mixing folk music (in their case of course joiking in particular) with more modern genres, from electronic, to pop, to hip-hop, all sorts of things really. Perhaps it’s because it seems so obvious that when you sing in Sámi, it’s almost impossible not to include joiking, so naturally it comes out sounding a lot more folky than it would be otherwise. But I also think that joik blends extremely well with modern genres, better than many other kinds of folk music do, so they may just be very aware of it and take full advantage of it. I find blending folk music with modern genres or modern instrumentation very interesting in general, even if I don’t always like the results. I feel like it either comes out very good and tasteful, or the complete opposite and on the kitschy side. With Sámi music, more often than not, it’s the former.
So since I’ve been listening to all sorts of music in Sámi lately, I thought I’d share with you one such song which blends together Sámi folk and pop/dance vibes into a quite surprisingly coherent-sounding whole. I don’t really know much about these three musicians behind it other than they’re all from Kautokeino in Finnmark in Norway. I don’t even know what the title of this piece means, other than that I believe nieiddat means daughters but I’m not even entirely sure of that.
Since recently I’ve shared quite a few Sámi songs, why not share another one today. I heard this song yesterday for the first time on NRK P1, and I really liked it right away. Agnete, who is also known as Agnete Johnsen, Agnete Johnsen Saba or Agnete Saba, is a Sámi singer from Norway, who might be known to non-Norwegian audience for representing her country in 2016 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Icebreaker.
This song is about her love for her mother tongue, North Sámi. I found some Norwegian translation of it where the title is translated as soft language, but I have no way of verifying it.
I’ve been listening a fair bit to Elin Kåven lately, as well as to Elin & The Woods which is a more electronic-sounding band which she has formed together with Robin Lynch, and I thought I’d share something by her withh you. Elin is from Karasjok in Norway, and from what I’ve read she also has her faithful fans in European countries outside of Scandinavia, and she’s known as The Arctic Fairy among them. She defines her music as arctic folk pop, which is a very fitting description indeed and I really like how she blends joiking and Sámi folk in general with a more pop sound. This song by hers is called Javkan, or Vanished in English, and, surprisingly, I’ve even managed to find an English translation of it, though I have no idea how reliable it actually is, but it’s the only one I’ve found and you can see it here.
Today I’d like to share with you a Sámi song, from an incredibly talented Swedish Sámi artist which is Sofia Jannok. I think Sofia is also one of the most influential Sámi musicians and one of the better known outside of Sámi land. I first came across her music thanks to Last.fm, which was my main source of music discoveries at the time and which generally introduced Sámi music to me, a bit accidentally, which I already wrote a little about when sharing Ulla Pirttijärvi’s song last month. Sofia seems like a fierce and powerful woman with very concrete views on the world, which don’t overlap with mine nearly at all at least from what I know and have noticed, but I still love her music very much and admire her love for her land. She has a great voice and I love how she blends so many different music styles, and how all these different styles all blend very well with her joiking. Unfortunately, despite I’ve been familiar with ViviAnn for years, I have no idea what it is about. Aside from joiking, it has lyrics in Sámi, but I’ve never seen any translations and have no clue what it could be about or who ViviAnn is. It makes me think of our Zofijka, because Vivi is a Finnish diminutive of Sofia/Sohvi, and I sometimes even call her Vivi, and Ann is obviously a variant of Anna, and Sofi’s middle name is Anna.
Yesterday (February 6) was Sámi people’s National Day. I love a lot of Sámi music that I know, but because I don’t know and don’t share as much of it as I do, say,Swedish or Welsh, I like to celebrate this day in some way on my blog and so it’s been a bit of a tradition that I’ve been sharing something Sámi at this time of the year. I heard this song a few months ago in one of the Sámi radio stations, don’t remember whether the Swedish or Norwegian one, and I really liked it. I once shared one song by Maxida Märak before, but that one was quite vastly different as it was in collaboration with Downhill Bluegrass Band, whereas most of her music that she’s known for is actually rap or electronic plus often joiking of course, so I’d say this song is more her usual style though it’s pure joiking with no lyrics.
Jåhkåmåhkke is a place in Sápmi, this is its Lule Sámi name as far as I’m aware, it’s also known as Jokkmokk in Swedish and Jokimukka in Finnish. It means river’s curve in Lule Sámi. It’s a very important location for Sámi people, as that’s where an office of the Sámi Parliament is, as well as Sámi Education Centre, and every year, on the first Thursday of February there’s Jokkmokk market, which is one of the most important social events for the Sámi culture.
Even though I generally really like Sámi music very much, there hasn’t been much of it that I’ve shared with you guys on here. Moreover, I think I haven’t ever shared any Sámi music from Finland on here, so it’s time to do it now. Ulla Pirttijärvi was actually the very first Sámi singer that I came across. I had just fallen in love with Finnish language, and wanted to look up some Finnish folk on Last.fm, and Ulla Pirttijärvi’s music was the first thing that Last.fm decided to show me and, while technically it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, because when I went looking for Finnish folk I was thinking, you know, Finnish-language, “actual” Finnish folk, I loved her music straight away because it was so different from anything I’d ever heard before and really beautiful. I didn’t even know that it wasn’t the “actual” Finnish music. I mean, I could hear that this didn’t quite sound like the Finnish language I was accustomed to hearing so far, , I knew that Finnish doesn’t even really have letters like “g” or “b” which I could hear in her language, but, who knows, maybe they have such distinctive dialects, or something? I didn’t have a clue about such a thing as joiking at the time either. I don’t know when exactly it was that I ended up actually learning about Sámi music and culture and what joiking is and that it’s a separate thing from Finnish, but for sure when it comes to my love for the Sámi language and interest in Sámi music, at least some of the credit for sparking that in me must go to Ulla Pirttijärvi.
And this song is one of my favourite songs by her. I must say that I am not sure what its actual title is. Spotify says “Boares Gietkka/Lullaby” other places say just “Gietkka”. What I’m quite sure of is that gietkka likely means cradle. I’ve even found a
I’ve been familiar for years with the song I want to share with you today, and I’d known it’s a cover of something, but had no idea of what. You may recognise ISÁK if you’ve been reading my blog from the early days because I shared one song of hers – “Face The Truth” – back then. She’s still one of my favourite Sami pop artists, and Sávan Dus Lea Sadji was one of her earlier songs as far as I can recall.
So recently I was listening to some Norwegian music on Spotify and heard “Håper Du Har Plass” by Cezinando that sounded oddly familiar and for a while I couldn’t quite recall what it reminded me of, but eventually figured it out that it sounds just like the ISÁK song, except it was obviously in Norwegian rather than Sámi, and indeed, that is the song which ISÁK covered. Now I like both versions a lot.
Cezinando is Kristoffer Cezinando Karlsen, he is a rapper, singer and songwriter who’s music has been highly acclaimed in Norway, and he lives in Oslo and is of both Norwegian as well as Portuguese descent.
ISÁK is actually a band, but I believe its founder and frontwoman- Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen- also uses it as her own artist name. She won a Norwegian song competition Stjernekamp in 2018, and I believe she is now more recogniseable in the mainstreamy world (or at least the more mainstreamy Norwegian world) due to her collabing with Alan Walker.
I managed to do a translation of the Cezinando version, which I’ll share below. This time, since he’s from Oslo, it’s not nynorsk 😌 ) but some bits were still challenging for me for various reasons. Sometimes I knew what something meant in Norwegian but found it difficult to find the right English words that would work in something as concise as lyrics but also convey the sense as well as I’d like. Some bits I could understand literally but wasn’t sure what exactly they’re supposed to mean or whether they’re idioms or whether I was in fact understanding something wrong, to the point that in a few places it seemed rather nonsensical like that line with the cellar. :O
There’s nothing that interests me anymore
Or feel like a genuine feeling
And it has just started to pour down
So I hope you have space
I hope you have space for me, again
Could be just a matress that can lie in the toilet as far as I am concerned
I hope I get a pass into your palace
I can keep calm and sneak around as if I was walking on glass
I hope there is space somewhere inside the heart that you’ve inherited from your mother and me
I hope you have space, I hope you have space
I come all alone and with no pass
You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me
Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself, and the last flame or spark
I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me
I’m coming back home
[…] was home again
I cannot go to her again
It is my fault that it has ended
So she has things that boil down in the cellar that burnt the home [???]
And I have things in the closet and in the folder [?]
I let it ring two times before I hung up so you can call me back up, and I will see your name on the screen – with a picture – of you
I hope you have space, I hope you have space
You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me
Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself and the last flame or spark
I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me
I come all alone and with no pass
I have slept out before
Then I was closer to the real me
The one far from the perfect, little defective me
I thought it was Jesus when you woke me up, but I’m easily fooled
The whole life and the whole world has been on me
So I gave up trying to make them understand me
I can make dinner, its the same for me
What about frozen hash?
I hope you have space, I hope you have space
I come all alone and with no pass
You can tell me when I need to pay attention and put me in my place if you find a window for me
Oh, catch me when I fall or lose myself and the last flame or spark
I will let you cry yourself out for a life with me on my cost if you find a window for me
There’s nothing that interests me anymore
Or feel like a genuine feeling
And it has just started to pour down
So I hope you have space
I hope you have space for me
Again, again, again, again
Every time I’ve wanted to come back home to you
I wasn’t expecting to be able to find a translation of ISÁK’s version, but, surprisingly, I did, and as far as I can tell as a practical non-Sámi speaker (yet) it seems fairly decent. You can find it
Time for a song in Sami! I guess I didn’t share one on the Sami national day (February 6) so it’s really long overdue.
Resirkulert isn’t really a Sami band, in that, as far as I know, they have no other songs recorded in that language and most of the members are not Sami. They seem to be quite popular on the Norwegian music scene. They come from the very north of Norway, and only one of their members – the vocalist, Emil Kárlsen – actually is Sami. This joik (a piece of traditional Sami music, usually with little to no lyrics, dedicated to, or should we rather say extremely closely associated or expressing the essence of, a person, an animal etc.) is Emil Karlsen’s grandfather’s joik. I find it so interesting that, from what I gather, it’s like Sami people each have their own joik which somehow describes them and who they are and is like an essential part of their identity, it’s so interesting to have a specific tune so strongly incorporated in yourself, that other people can sing to you (apparently it’s not the thing to sing it yourself, I guess it would be a bit egotistical). It’s quite abstractive but also very appealing to me, probably partly because of its abstractivity. 😀 What I also like about joiks is that they, despite being such an old singing tradition, can go extremely well with modern instrumentation and generally our contemporary music genres, which you could have already noticed from a few Sami songs I’ve shared before. I mean, obviously there’s loads of neofolk, electrofolk, folk pop and what not from around the world and it often sounds just as good as traditional folk, but something really clicks between joik and contemporary music vibes.
A fun fact I once learned is that Áddjá, while it generally means grandfather, can also relate to any older/elderly adult with whom you have a friendly relationship and who perhaps shares his wisdom with you or something like that. Moreover, Áddjá is apparently also used in the Sami land in reference to a BEAR! So I guess that shows what kind of relationship they have with bears, traditionally. As someone who loved bears as a kid very much, I like the idea.
My Inner MishMash 