MARI BOINE – new single & announces new album

Mari Boine releases new single “Eadnán bakti” and announces new album ‘Amame’ with jazz pianist Bugge Wesseltoft

By Norse is proud to present the first new single of Mari Boine‘s new album, Amame, which the Sámi–Norwegian musician and activist recorded together with acclaimed jazz pianist Bugge Wesseltoft.

The song “Eadnán bákti” (translated: To Woman) is premiering now in the form of a music video on the By Norse Youtube Channel here. The single is available on all digital streaming platforms here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Av_HhdJGLQ&feature=youtu.be

Amame (translated: So We Don’t) will be released on September 29, 2023. The album is now available for pre-ordering here: https://bynorsestore.com/collections/mari-boine
Pre-save the album here: https://bfan.link/mb-amame

Mari Boine states: “Eadnán bákti” celebrates the feminine in all of us, in all of nature. In the beginning, this song only had a melody and these lines: “Trust that you are a flower and fly, you are also a bird.” I remember singing it over and over for myself and loved the feeling it filled me with. It felt like pure medicine.

But the song needed more lyrics so I turned to Kerttu Vuolab. She had composed many beautiful texts. Several of our best writers come from the Deatnu/Tana area in Sápmi. Kerttu and many from that area were lucky enough to grow up with a rich storytelling tradition. Grandparents, mothers, and fathers, uncles and aunts who passed on the old stories from generation to generation.

Storytelling is the source of knowledge, wisdom, and survival for our people. And I am so grateful that this tradition is still alive.”

Mari Boine will be playing a selected number of shows with Bugge Wesseltoft. Find all confirmed shows listed below.

Mari Boine & Bugge Wesseltoft

31/07 – Olavsfestdagene, Nidarosdomen, Trondheim

30/10 – Oslo World Music Festival – Oslo Konserthus, Oslo

31/10 – October: Skien World,  Ibsenhuset, Skien

02/11 – Bergen Internasjonale Musikkfestival, Grieghallen, Bergen

04/11 – Tromsø World Festival, Tromsø Kulturhus, Tromsø

05/11 – Molde Mundo, Bjørnsonhuset, Molde 

Mari Boine
19/08 – Midgardsblot Festival, Borre, Norway

Biography

Iconic Sámi–Norwegian folk artist Mari Boine is known as a genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world. Returning with her new album Amame after five years, she has again found something completely different inside her than anything heard before.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Mari Boine lived up north, in Tromsø, and was preparing a new album with producer Svein Schultz. But musicians were hit hard by the pandemic. Jobs disappeared overnight and a gathering of musicians in the studio was not possible. Svein Schultz was lucky, he got a job as headmaster at the Cultural School in Hamarøy, while Mari Boine was left alone, listening to piano music. She loves piano music.

From there, it didn’t take her long to contact Bugge Wesseltoft, whom she knew well after he produced her album Gávcci Jahkejuogu – Eight seasons in 2002. She would like to collaborate with him again, but not with the electronica guru Bugge – this time with the pianist.

Over months, ideas flied back and forth, before they eventually were able to meet in Bugge’s room and record songs, with the exception of two songs that Mari herself recorded at home in Tromsø, while she looked out the window at the strait and a pandemic-closed country. Her first footprint as a sound technician, but hardly the last!

Amame is a different and more mature Mari Boine, accompanied by Bugge’s tender and responsive piano playing. Songs with seriousness and depth, sung by a Mari Boine who has found peace in life, but who nevertheless tells stories about love, human vulnerability, injustice, and struggle, but also about pride and dignity. For the first time, she records “Elle” on her own studio album, the iconic theme song from the film “The Kautokeino Rebellion”, now quietly accompanied by Bugge’s piano.

“Mihá ” is a song she knew she had to sing in Sami one day, the first time she heard it. This is the song for Liv in the book “The dark secret in Tysfjord”, written by Anne-Britt Harsem. This is the song for her, whose real name is Mona Marita, and it was written in Norwegian by Stian Soli, and here translated into Sami by Rawdma C. Eira and Mari herself. She says it is “for everyone who has managed to stand up and create a dignified life for themselves, despite betrayal and painful experiences of abuse”.

Mari sings for others, she herself assumes the role of an elderly person and imparts wisdom to the listener. The love song “Alit Alihastá Aliha” is a text by Karen Anne Buljo about two artists with great love for each other, for each other’s art. Anyone who listens to the interaction between Mari Boine and Bugge Wesseltoft does not even need to understand the lyrics.

The last song on the album, “Mu Oappá Niegus ” is the only song on the album that gives us Mari in band format and a small nod from one producer to another, as an homage to Svein Schultz from Bugge Wesseltoft. Mari Boine never stands still, and you never know what awaits, but perhaps there is a little hint here. A greeting to the principal at the Cultural School in Hamarøy.

Text by Arne Berg