Label: ECM Records, 2023

Personnel - Sinikka Langeland: voice, kantele, Jew’s harp; Trygve Seim: tenor and soprano saxophone; Mathias Eick: trumpet; Mats Eilertssen: bass; Thomas Strønen: drums.

Norwegian vocalist and kantele player, Sinikka Langeland, makes a return with an ace roster of Norwegian bandmates after the release of her excellent solo album, Wolf Rune (ECM, 2021), whose musical enchantments are not matched here. Nevertheless, this sometimes enthralling, sometimes touching sonic journey offers much to appreciate as the band, originally assembled for celebration concerts in honor of the bandleader’s 60th birthday, paints scenic landscapes with their individual stamp. Here, Langeland plays the 5, 18 and 39-string variations of kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument, and sings the poems of Jon Fosse, whose quests of faith and proclivity for mysticism serve the folk nature of the music.

The album opens with “Row My Ocean”, a beautiful song also featured on her previous album. The new arrangement weaves it into a feathery web that is both tranquil and emotional. Trumpeter Mathias Eick, a new addition, and saxophonist Trygve Seim, a frequent collaborator, discourse simultaneously, while Mats Eilertsen’s bowed bass adds another melodic layer. The horn players once again alternate lines in the sung version of “Wind and Sun”, whereas the instrumental version allows some tension to erupt from the pacified atmosphere. This is achieved through a swiftly plucked bass pedal and the varied percussion options - ranging from rattles to gongs to cymbals - introduced by drummer Thomas Strønen.

Set in motion by an admirable bass delineation, “It Walks and Walks” carries a mournful tone, interspersed with a few rays of light during Seim’s tenor statement. This spirit borders the introspective ambient folk of “A Child Exists”, which bathes in minimalistic waters, and differs from “When the Heart is a Moon”, a levelheaded folk pop song with a well-defined harmonic progression, as well as “The Love”, an unexpected rhythmic digression into warm bossa nova territory.

Segueing from theme to theme, with kantele comping slithering underneath, the album comes to an end with “You Hear My Heart Come”, a soothing waltzing piece with a jazzy feel and solo space. Preceding this, Langeland showcases her skills on the Jew’s harp in “Wind Song”, evoking the essence of the Earth with linearity and expressive freedom.

Langeland doesn’t reinvent the wheel with this album, but that’s not the point. Each song carries its share of pathos and incantation, illuminated by her captivating voice and absorbing playing.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Row My Ocean ► 08 - The Love ► 12 - You Hear My Heart Come

Label: ECM Records, 2021

Personnel - Sinikka Langeland: kantele, vocals.

I’m completely captivated by the entrancing, meditative music of the Norwegian folksinger and kantele player Sinikka Langeland. Having collaborated with known jazz personalities in the past - including the bassist Anders Jormin, trumpeter Arve Henriksen and saxophonist Trygve Seim - Langeland goes solo on Wolf Rune, her sixth outing on the ECM Records.

Here, she plays three different kantele instruments (a zither-family table-harp with rich tones), being more rooted in the incantatory and poetic tales of the Finnskogen folklore tradition than in jazz. Yet, a contemporary feel inundates these 12 tracks made of rune songs, folk hymns and dances, and mystic religious chants. Each of them works its own magic, generating a marvel of sounds that search for the elemental beauty in nature.

Langeland’s impeccable voice and the special 39-string concert kantele can be heard on the hypnotic “Row My Ocean”, in which she sings a text by contemporary Norwegian poet/playwright Jon Fosse; the tranquil “The Eye of the Blue Whale”, whose active low notes sustain the glowing upper sweeps and her own lyrics; “When I Was a Forest”, a mysterious and liturgical chant articulated with the words of the 13th-century mystic/philosopher Meister Eckhart; and “Don’t Come to Me With the Entire Truth”, where the 1961 poem of the same name by Olav H. Hauge soars above the bucolic nature of the music.

On the stunning “Winter Rune”, Langeland adds the 5-string kantele to the concert one, making a case for an ambient spaciousness that develops into occasional abstract textures that she sculpts (briefly using the bow) and molds with quill-plucked grace. When her voice is embedded in the last section, it comes with a pleasurably shivering sensation.

Configured like a lullaby-ish folk pop tune, the traditional “Polsdance From Finnskogen” merges the ancient and the contemporary, while “The Girl in the Headlands” is a trollspringar (Norwegian folk dance) carrying grace and emotion. The record ends with the title cut, a 1808 rune song wrapped in mythology and mysticism.

Conjuring incantatory landscapes and moods, this is a record of immense beauty that touches the heart and quiets the mind.