The music on Wind And Sun therefore sounds as fresh and intoxicating as ever, while looking ahead for new ways to bring the ancient and traditional together with the new.
ECM 2776 / 559 4314
Sinikka Langeland (vocals, kantele, Jew’s harp); Mathias Eick (trumpet); Trygve Seim (tenor & soprano saxophones); Mats Eilersten (double bass); Thomas Strønen (drums)
Recorded June 2022
After the solo album Wolf Rune for voice and kantele, Sinikka Langeland has again returned to a quintet setting to present her now unique and uniquely beautiful music.
With her recordings over the last decade or so, Langeland has drawn inspiration from culture of Finnskogen, an area on Norway’s border with Sweden known as the “Forest of the Finns” and with her latest album searches for new avenues of expression in the contemporary poetry of Jon Fosse.
Langeland’s marriage of her compositions and the words of Fosse is brought to life by a quite exceptional band. Saxophonist Trygve Seim is no stranger to exploring more traditional music and poetry, and his full sounding soprano saxophone plays an important part as a storyteller alongside Langeland’s voice.
Seim is also partnered by trumpeter Mathia Eick who is a perfect foil for the saxophonist. With his lean and lyrical phrasing, and clean and clear tone the two voices of trumpet and tenor blend superbly supporting Sinikka’s vocal on It Walks And Walks’.
Eick is also particularly fine on ‘When The Heart Is A Moon’, a lovely ballad that opens with Sinikka’s kantele and vocals before being joined by Eilertsen’s strong and warm bass line.
The trumpeter’s playing is equally warm but with a melodic and dreamy feeling, a mood that is also picked up in Seim’s quietly powerful soprano solo.
Sinikka’s kantele is cleverly placed in the ensemble on ‘The Love’ giving a real lift with Eilertsen’s double bass and the drumming of Thomas Strønen making a fine rhythm section to accompany her own vocals and also two exceptional solos from tenor and trumpet.
The kantele is also prominently featured on ‘A Child Who Exists’ that is a wonderful piece for Sinikka in a duet with Trygve Seim on soprano saxophone.
The piece is reprieved as ‘A Child Who Exists (var.) with Sinikka and Seim being accompanied by a dark accompaniment from Strønen, and a suitably subdued and sombre tone from the saxophone.
The variety and texture heard in Langeland’s arrangements can be marvelled at again on the closing ‘You Hear My Heart Come’ from the tentative opening sound of the tenor saxophone that is followed by an ever dominant repeating bass line from Eilertsen that leads to some inspire unison playing from Seim and Eick before the trumpeter takes his most declamatory solo.
The charm in Sinikka’s music has been the way the traditional and the modern sit side by side. In somehow capturing the essence of both, the kantele player and vocalist’s music has a timelessness that is emotionally engaging and often leaves the listener with a feeling of inner calm.
This is a trait that she has continued with her new compositions and the development of her arrangements for jazz quintet and done so without sacrificing the links she has forged with the traditional music of the region.
The music on Wind And Sun therefore sounds as fresh and intoxicating as ever, while looking ahead for new ways to bring the ancient and traditional together with the new.
