Raajroe: The Reindeer Caravan

With the cinematic sweep of an epic, and with the steady, enduring relentlessness of the rhythms of the natural world, the latest album from sublime Norwegian singer Marja Mortensson is another mesmerising journey into the culture and landscape of the Sámi people.

She is once again working with two musicians she has worked with on her previous two albums, 2018’s Mojhtestasse and 2019’s Top of the World release Lååje – Dawn. They are tuba player Daniel Herskedal, who arranged and orchestrated this sweeping collection, and percussionist Jakop Janssønn. The orchestral element, which appeared in her previous album courtesy of the Trondheim Soloists String Quartet, is this time supplied with rousing energy by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (KORK). Raajroe is the annual reindeer migration in search of fresh pastures. It’s a movement that the Sámi people have always followed. These songs celebrate the South Sámi joik and language of Mortensson’s ancestry, while bringing them to a contemporary setting with the full power of an orchestra and choir of voices, building in hypnotic waves that seem to echo the migrating herds. There is something of the Norse myths about this album. It has the same grandeur, the same brooding northern mystery, and the same sense of a culture forged in blood, fire and bitter winters.