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Written in fRoots issue 313, 2009
 

ULLA PIRTTIJÄRVI
Áibbaseabmi
Vuelie VUCD 805

A problem with a minimalist but culture-laden musical form such as Sámi joik is how to make a modern music from it that can display its value and essence. Joik has been blended with minimalist instrumentation, nature sounds, big rock soundscapes, techno, lots of delay and reverb (as someone, I forget who, said, it’s strange how certain long delays and reverbs can evoke the wide tundra and the fell, when in reality there’s precious little reverb out on the tundra). But once all these have been explored, and often used to great effect, the joiking itself can become just an effect, a guttural “loyli-loyli” sound in the mix. Still often enjoyable, to Sámi and those of us from further south, and some joiks have lyrics rather than just vocables, but by now it’s increasingly hard for progressive treatments of joik to avoid sounding samey.
      Primary among the things that makes Finnish Sámi Ulla Pirttijärvi’s work distinctive and non-samey is that Ulla’s joiks, or really joik-songs, have simple but memorable tunes, and there’s a shell-like quality to her voice, and a guttural turn, that makes her singing strongly joik-like even when it’s influenced melodically from outside the joik tradition. Added to that, live and on record, is the sympathy and experience of her Norwegian Sámi keyboard player, arranger, producer and husky-voiced co-joiker Frode Fjellheim, who gives the melodies a varied harmonic, textural and rhythmic framework without lurching into obvious references to other musical forms.
      Around the time of her 1997 album Ruossa Eanan they played an impressive band set at Stockholm Womex, but it didn’t seem to be followed by much extensive international touring, and, though the fine Máttaráhku Askái – In Our Foremothers’ Arms came out in 2002, lately she seemed to have gone a little quiet, internationally at least. Áibbaseabmi (Longing) is her third album, mentioned in fR 307/308’s Root Salad, and it shows they’re still exploring and making tunes and pictures that stick in the mind.
      For example Nieida - The Sámi Girl, with its catchy melody over a kind of suppressed, dark swamp groove, the calm lullaby Boares Geitkka accompanied by liquid piano, subtle synth and hints of glistening metal percussion, or Vigiheapmi – Innocence, that really does express the vulnerability in its title. Prudenciana - The Girl From Tanzania was recorded in that country with Tanzanian singers and marimba alongside Fjellheim’s synth, Snorre Bjerck and Stian Larssen’s percussion, and cello - often a feature on Pirttijärvi albums - here played by Kristin Alsos Strand; yet there’s no mistaking that it’s Sámi joik.
      While Ulla’s joiking is notably tuneful, in compositions influenced by church and other melodic forms, joik has often a component of imitation or evocation of natural or animal sounds in the joiking of a person, a place or an animal, and in Gumppiid Meanut – The Wolves she becomes a snarling pack of them, sounding like they’re squabbling over the finer cuts of a brought-down reindeer. It’s followed by the deep, evening tranquillity of the co-composed piano-accompanied closer Frovde Vuelie – Frode’s Joik, in the dusk the grey-blue looming of treeless fells and distance.

www.vuelie.no


© 2009 Andrew Cronshaw



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