Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space.
This is Mari Boine.
Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over....
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Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space.
This is Mari Boine.
Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.
Mari Boine. She’s got soul.
“It’s completely irrelevant what you call her music. Her music that blends seamlessly into the rhythms and sound picture of our times. She could have sung her songs a thousand years ago or a thousand years into the future and still retained the same depth and resonance. In other words, it is like Mari Boine’s voice reveals just the smallest sliver of eternity,” said one critic about her album Gávcci Jahkejuogo (Eight Seasons).
When Mari Boine made her music debut in the early 1980’s, she was an angry young woman. And she had every right to be. Christianity, repression of the Sámi language and the oppressive culture of “the big men down south” – these all weighed heavily on the mind of a girl raised in her native language but discouraged from performing traditional yoik. After all, it was “devil’s work.”
“The first music I ever heard was from my parents, singing hymns. We had no records or television in our home. My strict religious parents never allowed that. We did own a radio, but it was restricted to listening to the news, weather forecasts and Sunday church service,” says Mari. “But of course, when our parents were out or at night, we discovered music from all over the world on those radio channels. In fact, I first heard jazz on that radio.”
Outside the family home, Mari absorbed the music of nature, like the wind “singing” and in spring – birdsong.
Performing first in Norwegian and English, Mari eventually switched to her native tongue Sámi – “a good language to sing in, so rich for the voice,” she said. Mari channeled her personal and political frustration into the 1989 breakthrough album Gula Gula, which propelled her into popular culture both at home and internationally and gave her a platform to advocate for Sámi.
“It’s not that I was always a political activist,” she says. “And I certainly never profess to represent Sámi. It’s just that music gave me a profile and gives me a platform, so I use it. By telling my own personal story as a Sámi, I feel I’m sharing a piece of my people’s story. After all, my songs describe the pain of oppression and the struggle to reclaim self-respect, but I also sing about the joy of growing up within a culture that has such a close bond with nature.”
In 1993, Mari’s album Goaskinviella (Eagle Brother) was awarded the Norwegian equivalent to a Grammy. A decade later, Mari was recognized with the Nordic Council’s Music Prize. This special award acknowledged her artistic achievements, but also her ability to connect with a global audience while still maintaining her integrity as a Sámi.
Mari Boine has a new album. See the Woman. And as to be expected from Mari Boine, this new album is a twist.
“For this project, I really wanted to do something different. So, I reached back into my past, to the kind of music I listened to when I was younger. Much of the music I’ve been making up until now has a shamanistic beat at its core. My new project is full of keyboards and synthesizers and to me, it’s more experimental. These sounds create space for me to tell more complex stories.”
“It’s been a real challenge to see whether my own vocal style (which is heavily influenced by traditional Sami styles) can work in a language that isn’t my mother tongue. I think I’ve pulled it off. It’s an album I’m very proud of.”
Som modtager af Nordisk Råds Musikpris og flere norske grammyer er den samiske sangerinde Mari Boine en personificering af de nordiske rødder. Med naturen som den primære inspirationskilde har hun i mere end 25 år repræsenteret samisk kultur rundt i verden. Nu er hun aktuel med det anmelderroste album “See the Woman”, som hun tager med til DR Koncerthuset den 28. februar 2018.
Uanset om man interesserer sig for jazz, folkemusik, salmer eller ‘verdensmusik’, så hører den samiske vokalist og sangskriver Mari Boine til blandt de største og mest særegne stemmer i Skandinavien. Hun har samarbejdet med Jan Garbarek Group, udgivet musik på Peter Gabriels label Real World og er blevet sammenlignet med Björk, men hendes musikalske udgangspunkt er unikt for den samiske region og folkemusik, hvorfor hun bliver hyldet som et musikikon fra nord.
Da Mari Boine debuterede på musikscenen i starten af 1980’erne, var hun en oprørsk ung kvinde. Hun voksede op med salmer, men opdagede jazzen og absorberede også naturens “musik” som vindens susen, fuglenes sang og det arktiske landskab i stilhed og storm.
Efter at have sunget både på engelsk og norsk skiftede Mari til det samiske, der ifølge sangerinden er et “rigt sprog for stemmen”. I 1989 fik hun et massivt gennembrud med albummet “Gula Gula”, der blev et udtryk for hendes personlige og politiske frustration. Albummet gjorde hende til et stort navn i populærmusikken både hjemme og internationalt, hvor hun er blevet en form for kulturel ambassadør for samerne. I en karriere, der strækker sig over 15 albums, har hun siden modtaget tre Spellemann-priser (norsk grammy), Nordisk Råds Musikpris, Samisk Kunstnerråds ærespris og Den Kongelige Norske St. Olavs Orden.
I 1997 var Mari Boine med i opløbet om Nordisk Råds Musikpris (som dét år gik til Björk), og da hun i 2003 endelig modtog prisen var det en hyldest til hendes nordiske intuition, hendes artistiske nyskabelse og ikke mindst evnen til at formidle den samiske kultur. Hun har lige siden holdt fast i sine musikalske rødder og samtidig givet dem en nutidig relevans.
Det er komplet irrelevant, hvordan man kategoriserer hendes musik. Det er et udtryk, der opløser sig i rytmerne og lyden af vores tid. En anmelder beskrev Mari Boine sådan her: “Hun kunne have sunget sine sange for 1000 år siden, og om 1000 år ville de stadig have samme dybde og resonans. Det er som om, Mari Boines stemme giver os et lille glimt af evigheden.”
Mari Boines band turnerer nu i Europa med sange fra hendes seneste album “See the Woman”, om hvilket hun fortæller:
“For this album, I really wanted to do something different. So, I reached back into my past, to the kind of music I listened to when I was younger. Much of the music I’ve been making up until now has a shamanistic beat at its core. My new project is full of keyboards and synthesizers and to me, it’s more experimental. These sounds create space for me to tell more complex stories. It’s been a real challenge to see whether my own vocal style (which is heavily influenced by traditional Sami styles) can work in a language that isn’t my mother tongue. I think I’ve pulled it off. It’s an album I’m very proud of.”
Koncerten præsenteres af DR Koncerthuset i samarbejde med Copenhagen Jazz Festival.
"De som mener de kjenner artisten Mari Boine og hennes musikk bør belage seg på en overraskelse. See the Woman er blitt en fantastisk sfærisk meditasjon full av melankoli og mystikk. Som et lengselsfullt drømmelandskap brer musikken seg ut som en slags meditativ bønn. Albumet beskriver en stolt reise i kvinneliv formidlet med sofistikert lyrisk kraft." – 5/6 stjerner i Aftenposten.
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