Musicians discovered in Finland

One of the unexpected gifts of my recent trip to Finland was encountering Finnish yoik singers. Yoik is a traditional form of music sung by the peoples of the far north, in Sámiland. The conference I attended invited Wimme Saari to sing for us at an evening banquet, and I was mesmerized by him. On my way home I looked for a CD of his music, and brought home not only one of his records, an album entitled “Bárru,” but also one by a group called “Girls of Angeli,” entitled “The New Voice of the North.” This music is vocal, and largely in a language I don’t understand, yet I move to the rhythms and the melodies so easily. There are some uncanny similarities in these songs to some sung by other native peoples, a point made at the Sacred Media conference, where we were also treated to the singing of Sara Imilmaqui Aguas (who is a native of Chile).