Two iconic performers of Scandinavian world music bring us their latest albums, outshining the brightest of the Northern Lights.
The Finnish Värttinä used to perform as a kind of traditionalist folk music band. Traditional folk music made a comeback in last year's album, Viena, inspired by a "pilgrimage” to the Karelian huts, saunas, lakes and boats the members of the group had known from old postcards.
The Norwegian Mari Boine is one of the best-known representatives of the Arctic Sami tradition. She grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s in an environment, ashamed of its Sami linguistic heritage and shamanistic religion. She soon started to rebel against the prejudiced attitude that her people were inferior by writing protest songs, only to eventually turn to her suppressed Sami faith and culture.
