root salad Kata
Chris Nickson on unearthly harmonies from the mysterious Nordic tradition of the Faroes.
five Faroese women of Kata add to the enigma, offering beautiful, unearthly har- monies as they sing about dead, night-vis- iting mothers, murdered lovers, and bal- lads about witches, with subtle touches of electronics and percussion. It’s a breathtak- ing, captivating trip into a largely hidden Nordic tradition.
T
“The group was founded in 2008,” recounts Unn Paturson, “and primarily per- formed Bulgarian folk songs. I joined after- wards, and we were active for three years, until the founders moved abroad. The rest of us loved the music, so we asked two oth- ers to join, and the current group has been together since 2013.”
As some of the members had been singing in the Faroese women’s choir, Cantabile, they decided to bring more Faroese material to the mix, and Paturson composed the vocal arrangements (one was arranged by member Greta Bech).
“I just thought that it would be natu- ral for us Faroese singers to perform folk songs in our own language, and from our own society and culture,” she says. “Many of the variations of the old Faroese songs and ballads have been forgotten. The sto- ries that they tell can be dramatic, humoristic, horrific, and are all full of old stories, myths and fairytales.”
The inspiration came from the note- books of Marianne Clausen, a Danish musicol- ogist and choir conductor, who until her sud- den death four years ago, collected record- ings of Faroese singers and local songs, con- tinuing the work that her father had begun.
“She wrote down and published 3,334 of the approximately 6,100 recorded melody examples, made some recordings herself, and published them in books, so that people could learn these old melodies,” Paturson says. “The recordings go as far back as 1902, made by another Danish musicologist, Hjalmar Thurén. But the melodies and songs are older than this. Some are medieval ballads, although it’s hard to say precisely when the melodies have formed. They’ve been part of an oral tradition in the Faroe Islands, where the ballads and folk songs have been sung and danced, not documented about the nine- teenth century. Some of the songs and melodies are believed to have come from Norway along with the first settlers about 1100-1400 years ago.”
he Faroe Islands seem like one of those mysterious places, out and adrift in the North Atlantic. On their debut CD, Tivils Døtur, the
That’s a very deep tradition to mine, and for this CD Kata have focused on songs that have content revolving around the lives of girls or women.
“The melodies that we sing are proba- bly as old as the lyrics that go with them. They’re not Marianne Clausen’s melodies; she only noted them down from old record- ings that go as far back as 1902. I still haven’t heard the recordings of some of the songs, I have only seen them written down in notes in books. I wanted to be truthful to the melodies in my arrangements, so they are not very abstract. You can be quite sure of the original melody.”
Kata also delved into their own history to bring another dimension to the sound. “Being originally inspired by Bulgarian music, I thought it would be fun to add some of that and combine it with the Faroese songs, and to have a rhythmic ele- ment accompanying the songs, to make the sound more dynamic and alive, a bit differ- ent from traditional choir music. So Rógvi, my husband, who’s a drummer and percus- sionist, created some great rhythms to go along with the voices.”
It’s an atmospheric addition, sparingly used, as are the textures that Lasse Thorn- ing Jæger brings to four of the songs.
“The music is old, the stories are time- less,’ Paturson says. ‘But the arrangements are new, and we’re part of the modern Faroese music scene. So I thought digital moods fit well with the music. We recorded live in the oldest church in the Faroe Islands, in Kirkjubø, and Lasse used sounds that had already been recorded, like Rógvi’s drums and percussion, making a whole new elec-
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tronic sound from them, then added them to the music.”
The elements combine to create a mag- ical, mesmerising web. Several of the singers have the chance to shine, voices soaring over the harmonies, and take the listener to older places and times, when shy giants try to win the hearts of girls, or mothers soothe their children to sleep by telling them the devil’s in chains.
“W
e’ve been performing a lot since we released the CD, but mostly in the Faroe Islands, and the
interest has been huge,” Paturson explains. “I think it’s because many people can relate to the songs in some way. Maybe they knew someone who sang on the record- ings, or they know a song, but haven’t heard it since they were children. For some it can be really emotional; there is a reso- nance or echo of some kind in their memo- ries when they hear them.”
Kata have taken one foreign trip, though. Last October saw them in London, where “we had a performance and a work- shop for participants that wanted to learn these old Faroese songs at the Southbank Centre. We would also like to go to Iceland, where they have a lot of good venues for performing this kind of music.”
And now they’ve found their Faroese groove, they intend to mine it.
“We’re planning to concentrate on the old Faroese ballads and skjaldur (children’s songs),” Paturson says. A tradition renews and grows.
nordic-notes.de/kuenstler/kata F
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