SOLJU
The Finnish ensemble SOLJU consists of the mother and daughter duo Ulla Pirttijärvi and Hildá Länsman. They are direct descendants of Saami people, that come from the northern area of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. February 6th is National Sámi day and SOLJU has released two new singles, on that day, in honor of their heritage. As Hildá explains, " One of my life long lasting goals as a person and Sámi artist, is to secure the continuity of the Sámi language and Sámi joik traditions by offering Sámi music and music education to Sámi people." I corresponded with Ulla and Hildá about their rich heritage and new musical project.
Ulla:
R.V.B. - How long can you trace the tradition of music from your family and is it custom to learn at a young age?
U.P. - I know that my grandfather’s grandfather had his own joik and the people from my region have been joiking it. Usually children learn to joik in early age, if the tradition has been practiced in the family. Joik tradition has been considered to be sinful act in the teachings and views of Laestadian Lutheran Church. So the tradition in our vocal music culture has been threatened to get lost. But the joik tradition remained in the everyday life, in families who worked with the reindeer husbandry, and the revitalizing work done in past three decades has helped the tradition to stay alive.
R.V.B. - Were you taught to sing by family members?
U.P. - Yes, I’ve learned joiks from my uncle. The joiks he taught to me tell stories of my relatives from Angeli village. I’ve also made joiks to my family members, to my daughter Hildá and to my son Nillá-Ánde.
R.V.B. - Can you give me a brief description of how it is to grow up in northern Finland?
U.P. - The village Angeli where I’ve grown up is a small village next to the border of Finland and Norway. It’s 65km to the nearest grocery store and school, so it was a lot of travelling for every working day. In Angeli, people got their living by herding the reindeer and that’s how most of my relatives and family members lived.
My dearest childhood memories get located to my Grandmothers place, which had a peaceful atmosphere in a forest next to lake. My grandparents lived in the rhythm of the seasons of nature. They did the work that was needed for each time of the year. During summer, we made the hay for reindeer and gathered the reindeer for making marks for reindeer calves. In the end of summer and beginning of autumn, we picked berries and mushrooms. We worked more with reindeer herding during the autumn until the end of spring. Making handicraft was part of our daily life. These yearly tasks are still part of our daily life
R.V.B. - Are there other art customs that are passed down besides music?
U.P. - I like to do Sámi handwork and I’ve learned the custom from my mother. Sometimes we gather to make them together, with her, my daughter and other family members, and close relatives.
R.V.B. - Can you briefly describe the environment and surroundings of your home territory?
U.P. - We live in Northern most part of Finland in a municipality called Utsjoki. Our home is surrounded with a view of fells and lake. We have quite cold weather here with lots of snow.
R.V.B. - How important is it for you and your daughter to preserve the music and tradition of Sámi traditions?
U.P. - We’ve been grown up and raised to Sámi culture, so it’s part of our identity. Life would feel strange and empty if we should only be under the impact of Finnish or other western cultures.
Hildá:
R.V.B. - As a young woman that has a very important role to keep up a world tradition, is it also important to keep a modern approach to this task?
H.L. - I think that the culture with its traditions stays vibrant and alive when you have the freedom to practice and express yourself creatively with a modern approach. It’s nice to have the modern and fresh twist in our traditional crafts and music. My mother, Ulla and I often make our traditional wear, stage costumes and accessories; we like to go crazy with the colours! But the sewing patterns we use are mostly traditional; our choices of colours, silk ribbons and jewellery et cetera also correspond to codes in Sámi culture, reflecting where we're- from. We want to practice our tradition in a good taste and respectful manners.
R.V.B. - How did you and your mother work together to make this exciting music work. Was it natural to figure out who would do which parts in the writing process?
H.L. - Working together with these songs felt quite easy and natural. We both trust to each other’s skills; we believed that we can make it happen if we only find good musicians to work with. We had most of the songs ready for the great musicians; Samuli Laiho and Samuli Majamäki, to arrange and produce.
For most of the songs we both had either only lyrics or melodies, this meant we could then decide to fill in parts of each other’s songs. It was also easy to make the choices of who sings or joiks where and in each song. In many songs Ulla represents the traditional side, whereas I speak for modernity and bringing in traditions from outside of our culture for example in one song I try out vocal techniques like throat singing with growling sounds. However, I still joik in some songs traditionally.
R.V.B. - When was your first live performance in front of people and how did it go?
H.L. - My first live performances on front of people was probably in preschools Christmas and summer festivities. But I especially remember the ones that we did in elementary school, when we used to make performances with our teachers guide to a Sámi Youth Theatre & Dance Arts Event, where all the sámi children could join in northern most part of Finland. Organisation of these yearly events began when my mom Ulla was a child and that’s probably also one of the sparkles for getting her musical carrier started.
R.V.B. - Can you give me a brief description of people that helped out on this project?
H.L. - Samuli Teho Majamäki, a co-producer and a musician on our cd, was the first person we asked to join in to our project. He is a Finnish percussionist specialising in playing vibraphone. In our upcoming CD he also plays udu, mbira, hang, PVC pipe and many more exciting percussion instruments. Samuli has travelled and performed around the globe; in addition to Finland, he has lived in Australia, Tanzania, India and Japan. He’s a calm peace loving guy and it has been nice and easy to work with him.
Samuli Laiho, whom we got to know through Majamäki is the producer of our cd. He played synths, piano, guitar and glockenspiel and did the programming in our songs. Samuli Laiho has a long carrier in playing, making and producing songs. He’s a quick thinker, effective and creative musician and producer. Right from the first meeting we instantly fell in love to his vibes and way of working with our songs.
Riku Mattila is a commendable and rewarded music producer. He mixed our songs and gave his valuable opinions and counsel during this process. It was fun to notice how his mixing work gave new dimensions to these songs.
Guest artists:
Czech National Symphony Orchestra - strings
Paavo Lötjönen - cello
Mikko Neuvonen - throat singing
Janne Puurtinen - synth bass, synth
Mastered by Minerva Pappi
R.V.B. - What kind of impact do you hope to have with the CD release, on the region where you live, as well as the world?
H.L. - Many Sámi musicians have made a musical career at an international level. It’s more or less easy to get gigs in the Northern most areas of Finland, Norway and Sweden where Sámi people live, but I haven’t heard the music of Sámi played widely at a national level in Finland. So it’ll be interesting to see how people in Helsinki, where I moved only 1.5 years ago, will like or find out about our songs.
My Sámi heritage is a driving force for me, where I draw my motivation and persistence to artistic work. One of my life long lasting goals as a person and Sámi artist, is to secure the continuity of the Sámi language and Sámi joik traditions by offering Sámi music and music education to Sámi people. It is especially important that the Sámi youth can learn and listen to music in their own native language. So I’m more than happy if my indigenous sisters and brothers get the love and good vibes that I’m trying to send to them through these songs.
R.V.B. - In what order do you place the importance of your role to carry on traditions?
1 - Language
2 - General customs
3 - Music
4 - Arts
5 - Modernization of beliefs.
6 - Everything is important... why?
H.L. - It’s somehow challenging for me to see the parts in these traditions as separate things. When I joik and make my music, I also think the language, visual arts, traditional handicraft “duodji “, the social aspects in these things and the means and practices to find our place and ways in these modern times.
R.V.B. - What is behind the title of the duo SOLJU?
In Northern Sámi, solju is the name of the brooch that Sámi people usually wear with their traditional dress Gákti. We formed out group, Solju in the summer of 2014. At the same time we worked with Swedish musicians Ylva Persson and Linda Persson, to make a song for 2015 UMK, which is a music competition that selects Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
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Special thanks to Aija Lehtonen of Bafe's Factory.
For more information on Solju, visit their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/soljuofficial/
Photos (c) Marja Helander.
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