After our coverage of all things Post Rock, Folk Rock and 60s influenced Slacker Pop, we’re going to introduce you to 2 new artists (well new to Nordic Music Review at least..…) this weekend who have folk music at the heart of what they do, but are pretty unique in their approach.
The first is the irrepressible Catself, a Finnish storyteller who sings unusual quirky fairytale style songs about animals, elves and everything pure and beautiful in nature. And as much as we like our melancholy singer songwriter types, it feels pretty good and refreshing to feature someone who sings about whatever she wants, and in such a free spirited way. Catself has actually been around for a few years, building up an appreciative following across Holland, the UK and even Morroco, and has ‘Fanfunded’ her debut album (with the support of over 849 fans as of 5pm today) which will be released next year.
From that album we’re delighted to introduce the video to 'Alien Vampiress is Fitting In', which has been just been released today, and features the Polish Saint Nicholas Orchestra, an outfit that almost single handedly brought Folk music back to Poland. The very individual Catself melody backed by the baroque folk orchestral music, gives this a really original sound, utterly different to anything I’ve heard for a long time. The lovely thing about this music is that it paints such a distinct natural picture of Catself, exploring the forests and frolicking in the meadows searching for animals and plants to love and care for. For Lord of the Rings followers perhaps consider her part Radagast and part Lady Galadriel.
Anyway have a watch of the lovely video, filmed in the Netherlands and brilliantly directed by Riske de Vries:
Anyway, we have no doubt that Catself will be back in the UK soon enough as she did live dates here in 2014 and 2015, including the Great Escape in Brighton – and hopefully next time shes here it will coincide with that album launch, which has been recorded again with the Saint Nicholas Orchestra, which I think beautifully compliments Catselfs idiosyncratic melodies. We’ll let you know when the albums launched.
Catself photo by Aki Roukala