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Written in fRoots issue 237, 2003
 

ULLA PIRTTIJÄRVI
Máttaráhku Askái - In Our Foremothers’ Arms
Warner Finlandia Innovator 0927-44256-2 (2002)

Ulla Pirttijärvi was a member of the Finnish Sámi trio Angelin Tytöt. When she left, the Länsman sisters continued with a joik-inflected but song-based guitar-accompanied approach that subsequently evolved into entertaining realms of techno-dance, while Ulla pursued a more joik-oriented path and emerged in due course with the album Ruossa Eanan, a collaboration on the Swedish Atrium label with Norwegian synthesist and producer Frode Fjellheim and involving some of his Trondheim-based Jazz Joik Ensemble/Transjoik colleagues. Five years later, still with Fjellheim as producer, synthesist, arranger and occasional singer, comes Máttaráhku Askái - In Our Foremothers’ Arms.
      A joik is essentially an unaccompanied form, with the voice free to wander in pitch, rhythm and tone. One approach to accompanying it, used to some extent in the work of, for example, Wimme and of the late Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, is to leave it free to float among ambient soundscapes. Fjellheim’s arrangements for Pirttijärvi take a different line; the structure and rhythm of the accompaniments track and support her joiking, and add in extra melodic motifs between her singing. Her joiking, whether her own compositions or versions of traditional joiks, is clearly constructed to work with accompaniment, and there’s no sense of dubbing-on; she sounds entirely comfortable and involved with the arrangements.
     Given that, though there are occasionally short lyric lines, the bulk of joiking consists of “ay-loi-lo-la-loi-la” type vocables, often not spanning many notes, there’s a risk of sameyness in accompanying it. It’s a trap successfully avoided here. Fjellheim uses consistently interesting and inventive deep textures, never resorting to easy thud-tizz techno-grooves, and laces them with melodic lines from “real” instruments: Sveinung Lillebjerka’s violin, Mattis Kleppen’s bass, Snorre Bjerck’s percussion, Gunnar Andreas Berg’s slide guitar, or Gaute Solaas’ soprano sax.
      A historical recording of joiker Nilla Kitti introduces the song dedicated to Ulla’s great-great grandfather, Čálkko-Niillas. There are relevant echoes of other music traditions, for example Jovan Pavlovic’s Balkan/Middle-Eastern accordion fills in New York complementing an insistent rhythmic joik tune just spanning three notes. Further variety is added by seamlessly-edited borrowings from (credited) sample collections, such as the Chinese erhu lines in De Juoiggas, and Indian samples of what sounds like sarangi and bansuri weave through Inger-Mari, which has more lyrics than most and a chord progression in the manner of what might be described as a “normal song”. Even there, though, Pirttijärvi’s commanding, guttural, shell-like joik vocalising makes something different of it.
      She’s a fine and distinctive artist, and this not only goes straight up there among the key Sámi records but is showing signs of catching on with a wider audience, appearing in this month’s European world music airplay chart top ten.


© 2002 Andrew Cronshaw



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