One of Eivør's first live performances was in complete darkness. She sang a capella afloat a small yacht in a mountain cave off the Faroe Islands. "It has a huge cathedral sound," Eivør, 34, says. "It's quite something to sit in a cave in complete darkness and hear only the sound of the ocean and your voice." The sounds of crashing waves and its echoes are sampled in a song on her latest album Slør, which has been released in English, as she prepares for her UK tour.
Much of Eivør's musical inspiration is drawn from her home in the Faroe Islands, where the performance of traditional folk songs differs from village to village and children grow up in musical families. "It's such a big part of the culture, telling stories and singing these old songs. That really inspired me," she says.
Eivør started out when she was 17 by mixing jazz with traditional Faroese music to tell stories of wanderlust. Now she's returned to her roots and swapped jazz for modern electronica. Her single "Piece by Piece" is stripped back to just her vocals, a ukelele and sonorous male vocals - much like the a capella folk traditions of The Faroes.
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While writing Slør, Eivør was determined to keep it in Faroese. But when she started recording tracks in the UK for TV series such as The Lost Kingdom and Downton Abbey, she felt that translating a few songs to English could work - and help a wider audience relate to her music. "When I started listening to music, it was all English [language] stuff like Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, Massive Attack and Portishead… English is the language of music, in many ways," she says. Still, Eivør enjoys switching between the two languages on stage, depending on the vibe from the crowd. "Some of the songs almost feel like new, different ones. Words are like an instrument. It's like swapping the piano with guitar," she explains. "When I am performing live, I like to mix it up because they have two identities."
Eivør, who is now based in Copenhagen, travels back home a few times a year, often to join the HEIMA Festival, where musicians perform in people's homes and anyone is welcome to wander in. Would she go back to the cave where it all began? Maybe not. "I remember once it was rough, the water kept rising and we almost hit the ceiling. I was in this little boat and thought, 'will I survive?' I just closed my eyes and kept singing."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
