Eivør
Bio
For over two decades, Faroese artist Eivør has been regarded as one of the most bewitching and fearless voices to have emerged from the Nordic music scene. Ranging across rock, pop noir, jazz and folk to electronica over the course of 11 solo albums, various collaborations, live albums and soundtrack work, including The Last Kingdom, God of War and God of War Ragnarök, her musical path has revealed both a restless, explorative spirit and a singer deeply connected to her Faroese roots, earning her the Nordic Council Music Prize along the way.
Eivør grew up in the small coastal town of Syðrugøta on the Faroese island of Eysturoy. Immersed in nature, looking out to the sea where a world beyond lay out of sight, she found ample space to dream, knowing early on that becoming a singer would see those dreams fulfilled.
“There's a certain longing that comes with living in a place like that,” says Eivør of her need to become tuned to the elements, but to overcome them too. “You’re often in a calm state, because it’s a place where time feels like it’s going slowly. You want to make plans, but it can be hard because the weather can decide whether you have to cancel or not.”
With her love of singing passed down from her mother, who would teach her folk and radio songs, Eivør’s first step on her musical journey was to join the rock band Clickhaze when she was 15, going on to release a folk-pop solo album, Eivør Pálsdóttir, a year later. Knowing she wanted to refine and expand her technique, she relocated to Iceland to study classical singing, her next solo album, Krákan, going on to win two Icelandic Music Awards.
It’s testament to the singular yet universal nature of Eivør’s restlessly boundary-defying music that her fanbase has since grown to include metalheads and the Norse pagan folk scene – for whom her startling voice, hide drum and throat-chant incantation, Trøllabundin, has become an unofficial anthem – as well as the mainstream, all instinctively understanding that music coming from a place of true authenticity knows no boundaries.
If Eivør’s last album, Enn, marked the beginning of a darker, more atmospheric phase, her forthcoming release, Tungl – a Faroese word for ‘moon’ – and her first for the powerhouse German metal label Nuclear Blast, sees her reach further into elemental realms than ever before. Immersive, unmoored and steeped in a sense of time-stretched drama where familiar marker points give way as an inner compass emerges over its 10 searching tracks, it’s an album also in tune with a very contemporary need for navigation, self-belief and rejuvenation in the most uncertain of times.
As Eivør herself says:
“Tungl explores the ever-changing cycles of life – its songs move between moments of tenderness and heartache, love and loss, and the emotional tides that shape us. Like the moon that inspired its title, Tungl serves as a gentle guide through life’s darker passages, illuminating the beauty, resilience, and transformation found along the way.”
Due to the closure of the Faroe Islands’ sole recording studio in the capital, Torshavn, Eivør opted to rent a house in her hometown of Velbastaður and record Tungl there with the whole band together. The result was a more organic approach that brought a new level of intimacy to the album.
“That’s the feeling I wanted to capture,” says Eivør, “recording the old-school way. Especially now when you can ask AI to write a song for you, I like the struggle of creation, the highs and lows, and to go through all those different phases. That’s going to come out in the music and give it its own DNA. It’s those layers within layers where the magic lies.”
Although Eivør’s 2010 album, Larva, saw her break with her folk past to head into a more electronic direction, Tungl still carries a deep connection to her folk roots. With its deep, trawling beats leading a procession into the unknown, the opening track, Og mánin græt (‘And The Moon Cried’), is heavily inspired by the ‘chain dance’ – a form of a cappella hymn originating in the Middle Ages, but kept alive in Faroese tradition where a ring of dancers would form, feet would be stomped, and tales would be told of Viking battles and valour. But throughout the album, with its shifts from deep beats to atmospheric expanses, Tungl forms an emotional and sonic ecosystem every bit as singular yet changeable as the Faroese weather itself.
Lead single Healer is an intimate yet unsettling act of empowerment, Eivør’s arctic, intricately sculptured vocals flowing over trip hop undertows, becoming ever more luminous and wraith-like as if they were an apparition dispersing. Drekafljóð (‘Dragon Woman’) rolls across the consciousness like an enveloping mist, its rolling, bass-heavy groove and a rich seam of keys giving ballast to Eivør’s combination of encouraging whispers and vagrant, octave-scaling chants. Meanwhile, the stealth-laden Fangað (‘Trapped’) is an act of reconnection, not only a collaboration with Eivør’s sister Elinborg, but also harbouring a subtle return to the throat singing that resurfaced on Enn’s Upp Úr Øskuni track.
But whether it’s Verjugarðar (‘Walls’), inhabiting the realms between lament and a devotional nurturing of hope, Eivør sounding as delicate and unbreakable as Mithril, or Spøkilsir’s (‘Ghosts’) lantern-lit guide into castle depths and out into verdant spaces, Tungl mines states of transition for unfathomable amounts of wanderlust and wonder.
It culminates with the album’s second English-sung track, Everyone But Me. A collaboration with composer Danny Saul, who Eivør worked with on the soundtrack for The Last Kingdom: Destiny Is All, its exiled, glacial vocals gliding over deep seams of keys bring to mind both Angelo Badalamenti’s score for Twin Peaks and his and David Lynch’s vocal muse, Julee Cruise – a glimmering beacon calling out into the dark.
“It’s one of my favourite songs that I’ve written in a long time,” Eivør says. “It’s a song about navigating; you’re out on this big ocean called life and you're trying to figure it out. It’s scary, but it’s also a beautiful thought. You know you need to go into that dark to find all the treasures, all the magic. When it comes to creating, it needs to be slightly uncomfortable and you need to be a little bit deep out there on the ocean in order to find something interesting about yourself and to learn something about yourself, right?”
Whether you’re already embedded into Eivør’s ever-expanding world or yet to fall under its spell, Tungl is a far-reaching journey of discovery.