Eivør Pálsdóttir's encounter with Dónal Lunny was pivotal to her decision to return to the roots of Faroese singing, she tells Siobhán Long
The north Atlantic has its share of challenges. Its roaring swell propelled Tim Severin across its path on the Brendan voyage. It buffets and nurtures a swathe of island nations. And lately it's been the bridge that's linked two disparate traditions in an unlikely union - steered by the ever-inquisitive ear of Dónal Lunny.
There's a touch of Enya in Faroe Islander Eivør Pálsdóttir. Not only does she share an appetite for haunting, atmospheric melody lines with the Donegal singer, but Pálsdóttir does a mean line in melodramatic album covers as well. Having carved a reputation for herself as a folk singer fully conversant in the alternative dialects of rock, pop and jazz, she was ripe for a challenge when she encountered Lunny at a music festival in Reykjavik three years ago. Back then, Pálsdóttir was studying music in Iceland, having sung with Faroese rock band Clickhaze and with jazz outfit Yggdrasil. Her encounter with Lunny was pivotal in Pálsdóttir's decision to return to the roots of Faroese singing.
"I felt very connected to Dónal, musically," she says, "and after we left, I just felt that I wanted to work more with that man." Two years passed, while Pálsdóttir let her ideas for her fifth album percolate. Last year, she decided the time was right to take a step towards melding the spare (hitherto unaccompanied) folk singing of the Faroe Islands with the meticulously arranged music for which Lunny is widely admired. It was a sound Pálsdóttir felt nobody could conjure but Lunny. "Faroese folk music is really only voice, because we had no instruments on the islands for many years. Rhythm and voice are really the essence of the music of the Faroe Islands."
Unsurprisingly, its Viking past has made its presence felt in Faroese music, since the islands' sights are naturally trained towards the Nordic countries and Iceland, rather than towards their southerly neighbours in Scotland or Ireland.
"We have two different kinds of song at home," Pálsdóttir explains. "There are the chain dances - where we tell long, long stories about the Vikings - and then there are religious songs, which we've got from the church. We only got church organs on the Faroe Islands about 60 years ago, so all our church music has been unaccompanied for a long time too. As a result of that, the melodies became very special, a bit like blues music - with a lot of those notes which are between major and minor keys. This music is so pretty and so beautiful, and very different to what you would hear anywhere outside of the Faroes."
Pálsdóttir's first language of Faroese is closely linked with Icelandic, so both her musical and linguistic reference points have drawn her northwards. The musical links between the two countries were stymied by the church, though, which banned Viking chain dances in Iceland while they thrived on the Faroe Islands. Pálsdóttir likes to experiment with her voice, stretching and bending it in shapes that are refreshingly alien to eardrums weaned on a diet of western (that is, largely American and English) music.
With all bar one of the 10 songs on her latest album - the Lunny-produced Human Child - composed by Pálsdóttir, it's clear that she's no mere pawn of the record industry. Pálsdóttir insists that she's under no illusion about the difficulties of forging a path for herself in the music business, but she's insistent that both the pace and the route have chosen her rather than the other way around.
"I feel that the music somehow guides me, instead of me guiding the music," she muses. "I love to write songs, and I feel I have to, somehow. I feel a need to do that."
ALTHOUGH FLUENT IN a number of languages, Pálsdóttir writes and records in Faroese, only later translating her repertoire into English. It's a lengthy process, and one that she acknowledges has its potential pitfalls, since switching codes doesn't always hold the promise of success, as anyone who's heard odd translations of pop songs can attest. Even Julio Iglesias lost something of his spark when his songs were translated from Spanish to English.
"I decided I would only do it if it sounded right," she enthuses. "I've been singing a lot in English recently, and I think that the songs still have the same power. When you change the language, it's almost like you're changing an instrument, so of course the songs sound different. I sing in Swedish, Icelandic and Danish as well as in Faroese and English, so it feels quite natural to me now."
Like sean-nós singers, Pálsdóttir treads a fine line when she chooses to sing her songs in English. Retaining the integrity of the song is central to her decision regarding language choice. "I like when people understand some of the words that I sing," she says, "but I always sing in Faroese as well, because I think that my language is very important to my music, and to its sound."
Lyrically opaque, Pálsdóttir's songs tend to conjure moods and memories rather than spoon-feeding the listener with a particular storyline or message. It's a tactic she feels is crucial to the longevity of her music.
"I like all kinds of art, when it's open and can lead you to some place in your own imagination," she explains. "I feel that's really important in my music too. This album is about happiness and sorrow, the good times and bad times, light and dark, and all the opposites that we all experience in life."
Having made her first record at the age of 16, just eight years ago, Pálsdóttir has hurtled through a career that's led to the dubious accolade having the best-selling Faroese album in the US and Canada ever. Having tasted elements of country, jazz, rock and pop in her first four albums, she's returning to the well with this collaboration with Lunny on Human Child. Instinctively, it just felt right, Pálsdóttir says. "The folk music of home is so deep in my blood that I feel I carry it with me in every song I sing, somehow," she says. "My great grandfather taught me all these old Faroese songs, and I simply love them. Singing these new songs, with Dónal's arrangements, is for me, like Faroese music meeting Celtic folk music, like brothers and sisters. When I was growing up, I used to always hear that Faroese women were Celtic, and that Faroese men were Norwegian, so perhaps this collaboration was inevitable. I don't know."
Pálsdóttir's interest in mirroring her music with striking visuals is particularly evident on the artwork for Human Child, the centrepiece of which is a shot of her in a foetal position, her hair and clothes floating in space - as if suspended in a protective layer of amniotic fluid.
"'That picture was my idea," she says. "I wanted to create a picture of an adult looking like a human child. It's almost like lying in the stomach of your mother. Sometimes I feel that we all are still in that state, somehow. You never really get away from that place, do you?"
Eivør Pálsdóttir performs with the Dónal Lunny Band tomorrow at the ESB Beo Celtic Music Festival at the National Concert Hall. Tickets 40/30/20; 01-4170000, www.nch.ie