Amame

It’s nearly 35 years since Sámi singer Boine recorded Gula Gula, the album which brought the world’s attention to her and her Indigenous Sámi people. There was something compelling about her voice, her language and her passion for humanity, standing up for injustice.

Over the decades she’s captivated audiences with songs and stories, selling out major venues around the world with her band. Now she teams up with another of the key figures for many years on the Norwegian scene, pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, rekindling their partnership from the 2002 album Eight Seasons.

This is an exquisite, intimate collection of songs, Boine’s voice losing none of its power in its quietness, Wesseltoft’s piano embroidering each song with arabesque-like motifs and gently shifting harmonies. There’s a fragility, a vulnerability in the music and a ‘held’ sadness: tracks include ‘Elle’, Boine’s song from the film The Kautokeino Rebellion, a true story of exploitation at a time when Sámi culture was banned, and ‘Eadnán Bákti (To Woman)’ which, Mari explains, “speaks to the femininity in all of us, also in nature and the female arts.”

With Amame set to become a classic, here are two performers revealing the raw beauty of their music.