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Written in fRoots issue 221, 2001
 

EIVØR PÁLSDÓTTIR
Eivør Pálsdóttir
Tutl SHD 50 (2000)

Beginning at the beginning’s fine, but to be drawn immediately into the remarkableness and strong roots of this debut album by an extraordinarily gifted 17-year-old Faroese I recommend starting listening in the middle.
      That gets you to track seven, Í Gøtu Ein Dag, which opens with the characterful singing of the song by Eivør’s great-grand-uncle, the 73 year old Hans Jacob á Brunni, before she takes up the song. She has a voice of alluring fragility with a knowing and mature strength, slightly evocative of Björk; though not in any way imitative of the Icelander, she projects a similar bright-eyed uncynical delight in opening her mouth and a sound coming out. (Not strictly relevant here, but too good to miss, was the description on a recent Radio 4 arts programme - by Richard Coles if I recall correctly - of the sound of Björk’s voice when with the Sugarcubes as “baby with a touch of outboard motor”).
      In Í Gøtu Ein Dag (“in Gøtu one day” - Gøtu is Eivør’s home village) she’s sparingly accompanied by classical guitar, bass and drums, pulling back again to unaccompanied, and subsequently joined by the Copenhagen-based Faroese male vocal group Fótatraðk, stamping their feet to the strong pulse in the traditional round-dance way.
      She’s not afraid to screech and squeak, as she does in Føroyar Min Móðir, before reverting to a calm, woman-girl voicing of Poul F. Joensen’s lyrics (in Faroese, as are all here) to her tune over Brandur Jacobsen’s pulsing drum, Búi E. Dam’s chiming vibrato’d electric guitar and Mikael Blak’s darkly slithering double bass, moving to stridency and wild wordless vocalising.
      The trio of Dam, Jacobsen and Blak (who is the 22-year-old son of keyboardist, Tutl boss and Faroese music prime mover Kristian Blak) comprise Eivør’s band Ivory, joined occasionally on the album by subtle keyboards from Tróndur Bogason. What they do is wonderfully spacious, rich and versatile, and in Jesuspápin Dam shows himself a fine melodic songwriter. It’s followed by a luminous jazzy setting of one of the Thomas Kingo hymns, Eivør singing with no stuffy churchy religiosity but with a passionate delight as in a song new found. The final track is sung solo by Hans Jacob.
      The focus of this second half of the album is largely Faroese traditional material, much of it from dance songs and church music. The first half is less obviously tradition-rooted; two songs entirely by Eivør, most of the rest combining her melodies with the lyrics of others. Track six, Lítla Barnið, is exquisite, with meditatively anthemic delivery and traditional-sounding tune.
      Eivør, now 18, has started to gig abroad with Ivory, and both she and Mikael Blak are also members of rising Faroese rock band Clickhaze. She’s going off in several directions, roots, rock, pop and jazz, and more will undoubtedly be heard.


© 2001 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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