Zither and Yon Listening Post 341. Like a grand journey to distant lands, Barbora Xu’s debut album Olin Ennen (I Was) explores affinities and contrasts: In her delicate-resonant voice, the Czech-born artist sings ancient Finnish and Chinese poems, for which she...
Pluck Listening Post 324. Abbreviated version of Marjo Smolander’s biography: Born in the smallest village in Finland’s North Karelia region, she made the Sahara her second home and had to pull strings to get where she is today. Expanded story: It was in her fortunate...
Forest of Dreams Listening Post 270. Nani is a dreamscape of overlapping civilizations, emotions, epochs and realms, merged into songs as delightful to hear as they are stimulating to map. Start with Emmi Kujanpää’s sterling voice, soothing kantele (Finnish zither),...
Women, Water and Song Listening Post 260. Global and local are like yin and yang for the duo Zäpämmät. Though partners Marjo Smolander and Pauliina Kauppila are both deeply rooted in Finnish folk tradition and have degrees from Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, Smolander...
Voices on the Edge Listening Post 227. Tuuletar’s debut album introduced vocal folk hop, a performance style of a cappella harmony, beatboxing, gesture and movement that filtered the natural world through Finnish mythology. Listening to Rajatila (Borderline), the...
Renaissance on Thin Ice Listening Post 175. Nothing is permanently frozen in time. In Sápmi—the Sami homeland that straddles northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula—this can be both blessing and curse. Ođđa áigodat (New Times) is a vivid record of...
The Sound of Light Listening Post 124. Step away from the urgent world and into the dazzling universe of Gryningsland (Daybreak), by the Swedish-Finnish trio Folk’Avant. Anna Wikenius, Maija Kauhanen and Anna Rubinsztein—who met at Stockholm’s Royal College of...
Cold Wind, Warm Voice Listening Post 121. Our idea of northern latitudes is shaped by stories like The Call of the Wild and Dr. Zhivago—tales that focus on outlanders who venture into the cold for exploration or refuge. One benefit of world music and literature is...
Forces of Nature Listening Post 115. Nature plays music for those who listen. In addition to the unique performance style that has earned them well deserved laurels, the women of the a cappella quartet Tuuletar listen carefully—to the earth, to the modern urban...
Shadow and Stars Listening Post 86: The range of human emotion stays largely the same, even in physical landscapes that are poles apart. So perhaps the mystery of Finnish tango lies not in how it flourishes on subarctic ground but, rather, in the eternal shadows of...
