01	Cuvges vuovttat, duo?alas calbmi						03:57
	02	Sami eatnan duoddarat						09:00
	03	Modjas Katrin						07:27
	04	Das aiggun cuozzut						05:31
	05	Dolgesuorbmageziiguin						05:42
	06	Skadja						08:38
	07	Goaskinviellja						04:09
	08	Rahkesvuo?ain						05:03
	09	Mu ahkku						05:33
	10	Ale ale don						01:32

Goaskinviellja
Release info:
1993--lean--MBCD 62
Availability:
Scandinavia, though I saw a version with English titles briefly in Canada and the U.S.
Ecto priority:
Highly recommended
Group members:
Mari Boine
Guest artists:
Roger Ludvigsen
Carlos Z. Quispe
Gjermund Silset
Helge Andreas Norbakken
Hege Rimestad
Comments:
The title translates as "Eaglebrother" in English. This is stunning all around, and perhaps her best album so far: gorgeous and powerful. (neile@sff.net)


The ancient, shamanistic, musical traditions of the Samis of northern Scandanavia, in what was once known as Lapland, are given a modern twist by vocalist and drummer Mari Boine (Persen). Although her highly rhythmic songs are rooted in the wordless, yodeling-like, vocal style of yoik (or joik), Boine's arrangements incorporate influences of jazz, rock and other ethnic elements.
Boine, part Sami, was exposed to the spiritual-like, psalm singing of the Christian "Laestadian" movement as a child. As a result of the resistance to her Sami background that she experienced as a youngster, Boine developed a lyrical approach that expressed her feelings about discrimination. Asked to perform at the 1996 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Boine refused to be treated as a "token ethnic ornament" and turned the invitation down.

Boine's debut album, Jaskatvouda Manna, was released on the independent Norwegian Iduit label. Her commercial breakthrough came with her 1989 album Gula Gula, released on Peter Gabriel's Real World label. In 1993, Boine's album Goaskinviella (Eagle Brother) was awarded the Norwegian equivalent to a Grammy. Commissioned to compose and perform new music for the Vassajazz Music Festival in 1994, Boine used the opportunity as the foundation for her album Leahkastin (Unfolding), which was released the following year. In 1996, Eagle Brother and Unfolding were combined and released as Radiant Warmth.

In addition to her own recordings, Boine's vocals were featured on saxophonist Jan Garbareks' albums Twelve Moons (1992) and Visible World (1995).

Boine's band features Roger Ludvigsen (guitar, percussion, bass, background vocals), Gjermund Silset (bass, dulcimer, percussion, melodica), Carlos Quispe (flute, chillador, ocarina, charango, vocals), Helge Norbakken (drums, percussion) and Hege Rimestad (violin). — Craig Harris


1995 Eagle Brother Polygram
1995 Unfolding Polygram
1996 Radiant Warmth Polygram


Mari Boine - Biography

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The ancient, shamanistic, musical traditions of the Samis of northern Scandanavia, in what was once known as Lapland, are given a modern twist by vocalist and drummer Mari Boine (Persen). Although her highly rhythmic songs are rooted in the wordless, yodeling-like, vocal style of yoik (or joik), Boine's arrangements incorporate influences of jazz, rock and other ethnic elements.
Boine, part Sami, was exposed to the spiritual-like, psalm singing of the Christian "Laestadian" movement as a child. As a result of the resistance to her Sami background that she experienced as a youngster, Boine developed a lyrical approach that expressed her feelings about discrimination. Asked to perform at the 1996 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Boine refused to be treated as a "token ethnic ornament" and turned the invitation down.

Boine's debut album, Jaskatvouda Manna, was released on the independent Norwegian Iduit label. Her commercial breakthrough came with her 1989 album Gula Gula, released on Peter Gabriel's Real World label. In 1993, Boine's album Goaskinviella (Eagle Brother) was awarded the Norwegian equivalent to a Grammy. Commissioned to compose and perform new music for the Vassajazz Music Festival in 1994, Boine used the opportunity as the foundation for her album Leahkastin (Unfolding), which was released the following year. In 1996, Eagle Brother and Unfolding were combined and released as Radiant Warmth.

In addition to her own recordings, Boine's vocals were featured on saxophonist Jan Garbareks' albums Twelve Moons (1992) and Visible World (1995).

Boine's band features Roger Ludvigsen (guitar, percussion, bass, background vocals), Gjermund Silset (bass, dulcimer, percussion, melodica), Carlos Quispe (flute, chillador, ocarina, charango, vocals), Helge Norbakken (drums, percussion) and Hege Rimestad (violin). -- Craig Harris, All Music Guide



Review
By Manika Vats-Fournier
Arts International Editor


From the frozen steppes of Norway to the warm, wooden floors of the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, Mari Boine, one of the most spellbinding and outspoken Norwegian musicians, has garnered international attention and acclaim. She will be performing music from her new album "Leahkastin" (Unfolding), on Sunday, Oct. 8.

Boine grew up in the small village of Gamehhisnjarga, past the Arctic Circle on the northern most tip of Norway. The Norwegians call the area Karasjok, but she knows it as Sami-land. The Sami people, an indigenous race related to North American Indians and Eskimo tribes, were colonized by the Christian Scandinavians. Part Sami herself, the first music Boine heard was the psalm singing of the "Laestadian" movement, a fundamentalist Christian movement which a large part of the Sami population follows. Boine's artistry is rooted in the Sami tradition and the folk music of Scandinavia's northern culture, which ranges through Norway, Finland and Sweden. Boine struggled to find a cultural identity and present it in her work. "I was bitter and full of what I regarded as righteous anger. I have been through every possible stage to reach where I am today. At school, we learned that Sami culture and the Sami language were worthless. They were not worth preserving. Believe me when I tell you that I was ashamed of being a Sami" As a contemporary composer, Boine encompasses many musical genres and cultures in her work. Her music is a blend of expressive styles: jazz, rock, joik -- the traditional Sami chant -- and other ethnic styles from South America and Africa. A diverse group of musicians, Boine's band members combine the sounds of bass, keyboards and guitars with the Sami and African drums, Indian flutes, the Peruvian charango (a small guitar) and an Arabic fiddle. Despite the global collection of instruments, the music is still solidly Norwegian and completely original.

Boine recounts being trapped between two different closed communities and ideologies. Raised in a strictly religious home, she says, "My father was a pious man. Dancing and singing with friends was absolutely out of the question. Girls were to be neither seen nor heard. That was the rule." Missionaries demonized pre-Christianity Sami musical traditions.

When Boine first began performing, she met with resistance from her own people. She attributes this to her open rebellion against her inferior status both as a member of the Sami people and as a woman.

Originally, her music was pure, pointed protest against the constant repression and missionary fervor. On several occasions, she challenged the Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, to deliver an apology to the Sami people on behalf of the Norwegian state.

When asked to perform at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Boine refused. "I don't want to be used as an exotic decoration. At an event like that, it could easily happen."

Commissioned by one of the major music festivals in Europe, Norway's "Vossajazz", Boine's fourth and latest album "Leahkastin" is not as much of a directed social commentary, but her voice and music are just as powerful. Boine received the equivalent of a Norwegian "Grammy" award for the album in February 1994.

Today, she represents both the Sami people and Norway all over the world. The majority of the Sami people regard her as one of their greatest ambassadors.

(original site)


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The Sami and Mari Boine
(from The Rough Guide to World Music, 1994)


The Sami, or Lapps, live in northern Norway, Sweden and Finland, preserving their own language and a culture related to other arctic peoples. As the indigenous people of artic Scandinavia, their relations with the colonizers have often been problematic, although, following a political struggle in the early 1980s, originally focused on plans to combat a planned dam, their rights and way of life are now enshrined in the Norwegian constitution.

Central to Sami music is the joik, an improvised and highly personal style of singing in a sort of epigrammatic form. Often describing nature or animals, joik illustrates the close relationship that the Sami people have with the world around them. When Sami people sing joiks for each other they don_t applaud but simply sing a joik in return.

Contemporary Sami music has seen some dramatic developments over the past few years, with several artists forging an international reputation. Nils-Aslak Valkiapaa from Finland performed the opening song at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. His recording break new ground in Sami music-making, incorporating diverse elements such as symphony orchestra, synthesizer and jazz/folk fusion with the help of the Finnish group Karelia. Angelin Tytot from the village of Angeli in Finland are a trio (sometimes a duo) of young girls, joiking and singing with guitar and percussion.

It is Norway's Mari Boine (aka Mari Boine Persen), however, who has made the biggest impact outside Sami land with her modern electric band. This singer has been an articulate spokesperson for Sami culture, both in her music and in interviews. As she explained: "I used to think men oppressing women or governments oppressing people realized what they were doing and were just cynical. But then I realized that often they are unaware and are filled with fear. I fell I have to find my way to their hearts to let them know what they are doing. It's the only way to change things. That's why I feel my music is important."

"Our first relationship is to nature. You are part of nature, not the master of nature. This also gives us a strong sense of solidarity - you are about other people. Money is not important and power is not important. It's more your personality, the human being that is important."

Mari Boine's music is dominated by her strong and urgent voice, plus a few carefully selected instruments from people all over the world, notably the native South Americans, chosen in part due to their history of even harsher colonization. Most distinctive is her drum. She uses an African drum, but the combination of drum and voice goes back to ancient Sami culture and pre-Christian shamanism.

"The colonizers brought Christianity and told the Sami they had to forget their primitive religion - and music was part of that religion. A lot of people of my parent's generation don't accept the music, they say it's devil's music and what you sing when you're drunk - the colonizers also brought alcohol. When I started to use a drum some people got worried and said, 'Is she a Shaman?' So I decided I couldn't use a Sami drum."

"I think your voice is a mirror of your soul and how you feel inside. When I began I was singing pop songs and ballads and didn't sing from the heart. Over the last ten years I've been fighting this feeling of being inferior to Norwegian or western people and my voice got stronger as I decided I wouldn't let anyone oppress me and that I have a value as Sami. Western culture makes a distance between you and your body or heart. In Sami culture you think of everything as a whole."

Gula Gula (Hear the Voices of the Foremothers)

Hear the voices of the foremothers
Hear
They ask you why you let the earth become polluted
Poisoned
Exhausted
They remind you where you come from
Do you hear?
Again they want to remind you
That the earth is our mother
If we take her life
We die with her.

(Please let me know if you don_t consider these quotes as "fair use" and give me a chance to update the page.)




Mari Boine's Band
Mari Boine voice, djembe
Gjermund Silset bass, percussion
Hege Rimestad violin
Helge A. Norbakken percussion
Roger Ludvigsen guitars
Carlos Zamata Quispe flute, charango

In autumn 2000, she was on tour with several new musicians:
Roger Ludvigsen, Gunnar Augland, Svein Schultz and Richard Thomas
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Radiant Warmth
Release info:
1996--Antilles (Polygram)--314 533 520-2
Availability:
Wide in U.S.
Ecto priority:
Highly recommended
Comments:
A selection of songs from previous albums which does quite a wonderful job of capturing the range and spirit of the individual albums. Probably a good starting point for those unfamiliar with her work or who might want only one album of it, though don't be surprised if you get this and then feel the need to track down all of her albums. (neile@sff.net)
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eallin (live)
Release info:
1996--Lean/Sonet (Antilles)--533 799-2
Availability:
U.K. and Europe
Ecto priority:
Highly recommended
Group members:
Mari Boine--voice
Guest artists:
Gjermund Silset--bass
Hege Rimestad--violin
Helge A. Norbakken--bass drum, tin plate
Roger Ludvigsen--guitars
Carlos Z. Quispe--voice, toyos, zamponia
Comments:
The title translates as "life" in English. These are live versions of songs from her earlier albums, and gives a sense of how brilliant she must be live--this makes me wish she'd play somewhere where I could see her. The album has a wonderful energy and clarity of sound: one of those rare, stirring live recordings that sounds as though it approximate the actual live power of the performance. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in her contemporary/world/sami music. Very listenable and dynamic, even though I don't understand the lyrics. (neile@sff.net)
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UNOFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY OF MARI BOINE
Photo:See link to Samimusic at frontp.

Mari Boine was born in 1956, out of the deep of North Sami Native Culture, and gave her a heritage which make the her the strong voice of the northern people in Scandinavia. Her childhood was spent in the small village of Gбmehhisnjбrga, not far from the sami cultural center of Karasjok, Finnmark.(North of Norway).

Her first musical experience came from the Laestadian movement, a strong influenced Christian movement among the Sami people. Their pietic psalms filled some gap between the traditional sami joik and the Norwegian folkmusic.

Mari Boine's roots in the Ethnic native Sami "joik" , together with the Christian influences have, beside of her adopting of jazz, rock and native music from all over the world, made her one of today's really unique artists.

She was met with resistance from her own at first, due to the opposition she made against the traditional ways of Sami Culture under Norwegian colonization, and the traditional women's roll, but now Mari Boine give the inspiration to most of her people, and crushes the myths about Norwegian bending the Sami, and the problems towards the Norwegian society. The history of Norwegian domination and injustice are not spoken easily about even today, and somehow it's being silenced and even denied of some Norwegians.

The understanding of both Norwegian and Sami Native Society, and it's internal and external conflicts, has made Mari Boine a great ambassador of her outspring and people. She is a strong personality and a woman with unbended will, and most of the time she has been working with her own music....created the best ethnic music there is to find in Norway today. Her audiences outside Norway, in Europe and even in USA , has increased the last two years, and her work is something to give her respect for. The high number of fans and visitors to her concerts is enough evidence of that.

The first international released album was "Gula -Gula", recorded in 1989, released by Real World Records. The third album "Eagle Brother" made a Norwegian Grammy in 1994, after it's release at spring 1993. Her band plays a variety of ethnical and traditional instruments beside of the electronically one's. Some of the instruments in use are the violin, bass, keyboard, guitar, Native American flutes, strings, and ethnic drums.

When the journalists meet Mari Boine today, she tells that she loves to be at the scene, and if anyone want to make a "home- with interview" with her, they are welcome to do it at the stage, because that is , in some ways her home. She says that she has developed alot these 16 years as an artist and feel the connection between her and her public when she performs at stage, the magic between her and the public can't be remade in any studio.. .

She feels that the new concert album has caught a kind of magic, which is impossible to create in a studio. It's about something that happen between the present audience, me and the Band, and it's something we appreciate very much.She feel more secure now than when she began as an performer, and this make the experience of having a live audience very special.

The making of this record was done in Germany, among other places, and Mari Boine has a very good experience with the German public. She is traveling alot, and everywhere in the countries she travels, she always meet a warm and great response.

In not so long, she will again go to Germany, England, and Czech Republic, were she will perform in alot concerts. The 12.th of December she will hold a concert in Oslo, Norway.

Mari Boine will stand as the future artist of ethnic music world wide, and she is and will be the one spirit of fire , which will burn in many people's mind for a long time into the future.

She is the cultural identity of the Native people of the world, one voice and mind that refused bending knees for anything or anyone.

1996




Mari Boine
Already one of the most popular and inspiring artists of her culture, Mari Boine is poised to thrill and enchant the world with her Antilles debut, RADIANT WARMTH. Beloved amongst the Sami people, who are indigenous to the northern most reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Russian Kola peninsula, Boine has been recording her original music since the early 1990s, but RADIANT WARMTH, which brings together material from her two most recent international albums, is a milestone in the burgeoning career of this fascinating artist.
Born in 1956 in the small northern Norwegian village of Gamehhisnjarga, Boine grew up without a strong sense of cultural identity. Although the majority of the Sami people, once known as Laplanders, live in Norway, their language and traditions had long been repressed within Norwegian society. "At school we learned that Sami culture and the Sami language were worthless," Boine has said. "They were not worth preserving. I was ashamed of being a Sami."

As a member of a colonized population, Boine was at first deeply influenced by Christian beliefs and practices. Denied her heritage, she remained out of touch with her indigenous legacy. Although she sang from early childhood, it was in the Christian psalm tradition. Nonetheless, Boine was discovering that her voice could become the vehicle for initially accessing and later advancing her native culture. And in the joik (pronounced "yoik"), the traditional chant of the Sami people, she found an open door leading toward artistic freedom. Joik provided a profound touchstone of cultural pride for Boine. The music's rhythmic connection to the heartbeat of nature, its custom of improvisation, and its overarching value of direct emotional expression all became guideposts in Boine's artistic development. As she developed her own musical style, Boine began blending elements of joik with other idioms - jazz, rock, world music - sculpting a sound which simultaneously exalts and transcends tradition. Over the years she has refined her music into an evermore sophisticated amalgam, incorporating instrumentation, rhythms, and harmonies from African pop, Andean folk, and contemplative new music.

Boine's emerging sense of Sami self-respect informed the tone of her first recordings - JASKATVOUDA MANNA which appeared on the independent Norwegian Iduit label, and GULA GULA, the 1989 breakthrough on Peter Gabriel's RealWorld label. Her songs expressed resistance to discrimination, whether against the Samis in general or women in particular. But hers is a subtle protest music, conveying both the fundamental dignity of all humanity and her people's intimate bond with nature and the land.

Boine's rising profile in her homeland earned her an invitation to perform at the winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. But refusing to be presented as a token ethnic ornament for the dominant culture, she declined the opportunity.

In 1993, Boine recorded GOASKINVIELLIA (EAGLE BROTHER), her first CD issued internationally for the Verve World label. In 1994, the same year that EAGLE BROTHER garnered the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy, Boine was commissioned to compose and perform new music for the prestigious Vossajazz music festival. Her appearance at Vossajazz further heightened her standing in the European music community and the material she performed became the basis for her second Verve World release, 1995's LEAHKASTIN (UNFOLDING). Songs from both EAGLE BROTHER and UNFOLDING became the basis for RADIANT WARMTH.

The music of Norway has received new recognition through such collections as NORDISK SANG (New Albion) and SWEET SUNNY NORTH (Shanachie), the Nordic jazz of Jan Garbarek, Terje Rydpal, and Ketil Bjornstad, and the ambient soundscapes of Oystein Sevag. Boine's exposure outside of Scandinavia precedes the release of her new CD - she was featured on saxophonist Garbarek's ECM recordings TWELVE MOONS and VISIBLE WORLD, and on two RealWorld Samplers. But Boine takes her personal art and her cultural identity to a new level with RADIANT WARMTH.

At once recalling the chants of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples and such techno-ambient variations on traditional music as the folk-pop experiments of Mouth Music and Musikas' Marta Sebeslyen, RADIANT WARMTH bridges the ancient and the future. Boine's spirituality and the stirring emotional expressiveness of her Sami-language vocals acquire additional musical detail through the dazzling multi-instrumental contributions of her working band: fellow Sami Roger Ludvigsen plays guitars, percussion, bass, and adds background vocals; Gjermund Silset plays bass, dulcimer, percussion, and melodica; Peruvian Carlos Quispe performs on flutes, chillador, ocarina, charango, and voice; Helge Norbakken plays drums and percussion; and Hege Rimestad, who has studied with Indian master L. Subramaniam, plays violin.

From the mesmerizing drone of the title track through the pulsating grooves and haunting atmospherics of 'Eagle Brother' to such ethereal musical poems as 'No More and Don't Go... Not You,' RADIANT WARMTH is the graceful yet forceful work of a mature and commanding artist. The simple but stately imagery and pleas of Boine's lyrics, often repeated in the manner of a spiritual chant, eclipse mere metaphor and verge on transcendental moments in and of themselves. Rising above the indignities assigned her people and her gender, Boine gives voice not only to universal yearnings for honor and fulfillment but to the joy of their attainment, as well. By recovering the memory of old ways and expressing it with eyes and ears attuned to the new, Boine makes a musical reality of her longing to "feather the world, feather my life, with love."