Ulla Pirttijärvi

Ulla Pirttijärvi is regarded as one of the finest artists from Sápmi ("Samiland"). She has worked with Frode Fjellheim who produced her albums in 1998 and 2002. Her newest album Áibbašeabmi was released in 2008. "Traditional Sami music revolves around singing. The only traditional instruments are the flute "fadno" (made from Angelica archangelica) and drums, and purely instrumental music is unknown. Modern Sami bands use a wide variety of instruments, especially the fiddle and accordion. "Improvised, highly spiritual songs called joiks (North Sami: luohti; South Sami: vuolle) are the most characteristic song type... Joiks do not rhyme, and have no definite structure. They are typically about any subject of importance to the singer, and vary widely in content." (-Wikipedia) Ulla Pirttijärvi's joik (recorded in her own home) is emotive and haunting. It is produced very simply. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.