Can Music Inspire Us to Save Ourselves? (Part II)

Probably not, but nothing else seems to be working, so…

Screenshot from “The Seed,” YouTube © Glassnote Records

(Note: This article is based on something I wrote last year, with edits, additions and new sources. If you read the original articles, feel free to skip to the third artist, Otyken. I found this song so compelling, and the current political zeitgeist so alarming, that I had to revisit the topic.)

I used to speak with my aunt in Arizona once a week. For six months a year, the last few years, she was largely been confined to her house because going outside for five minutes can kill you. She only recently died, at the age of 95, but thankfully, not by being roasted to death. (I wrote about her here:)

In Arizona, cars turn into ovens. Pavement and metal surfaces cause third-degree burns on contact. Birds and other animals die in large numbers. It’s supposed to get worse before it gets better.

Greenland appears to be on the verge of catastrophic melting, which would result in much of Florida, along with several small island nations, simply washing away. This could start this year or in fifty years, though recent events suggest it is already under way.

The Gulf Stream has gone haywire. We may see Europe freeze while North Africa and the Caribbean broil. Parts of the U.S. are experiencing increasingly frequent disasters. In a bit of surrealistic theatre, Florida’s politicians are taking measures to boycott companies that invest in renewable energy. Because.

The forecasting models are still imprecise and full of uncertainties, but it is obvious — or should be — that something is seriously off. So, with the world burning and some people still in denial, I thought a little nature worship was in order. The artists I’m featuring in this post all come from places in the wild north, on the front lines of the big melt.

They all share something else: Their voices and music are gorgeous and other-worldly. We don't have to look any further if we are looking for inspiration to do the right thing. Whether we heed it is another matter.

Heilung: “Norupo”

“Heilung” is German for “healing”. The members of the band hail from Germany, Norway, and Denmark.

They are:

• Kai Uwe Faust — vocals (2014–present)

• Christopher Juul — music, production (2014–present)

• Maria Franz — vocals (2015–present)

They record and tour with large ensembles of supporting musicians.

Their concept is to re-create bronze-age music as it might have sounded, based on evidence from archaeological digs and bits of pre-Christian musical tradition still found in parts of Europe. They play bones, animal-hide drums, gongs, horns (yes, real horns), and modern instruments.

They sing in Proto-Germanic and Proto-Norse, languages reconstructed by linguistics experts from Old Norse, German, English, and other European languages.

Many of their songs are about our ties to nature and our world. Most pre-industrial societies worshipped nature and the universe in one way or another. Many cultures today still have a personal relationship with the natural world. Some Westerners laugh at that sort of thing, calling it “primitive,” but the joke may be on us.

This song is an incantation to the old gods, who symbolized the various forces of nature.

Aurora “The Seed”

Aurora Aksnes is hard to describe. She is pale, fragile-looking, and almost elfin-looking, yet she can be quite to the point, even crude. She has a pure yet powerful voice—which she says she hates. Go figure. She doesn’t enjoy crowds or touring, but she has become Norway’s biggest musical export, almost despite herself.

Aurora grew up in Western Norway, in a small town on a fjord surrounded by trees and rivers. She found an old piano in her parent’s attic and taught herself to play some of the songs she had heard on the radio. Her influences include Leonard Cohen and Enya. She began composing songs when she was nine but had no intention of performing them for the public. She imagined herself as a dancer or perhaps a doctor.

After one of her songs was performed at a school event, someone posted a video of it without her permission, leading to her being contacted by a major music label. She does not affect any cute hypocrisy — she is quite happy that millions hear her music. She has dedicated herself to getting the message out that we must save our planet. But she is most comfortable with isolation, quiet, and long walks in the forest.

This song is based on a Native American proverb about greed and what it is costing us.

You cannot eat money, oh no
You cannot eat money, oh no
When the last tree has fallen
And the rivers are poisoned
You cannot eat money, oh no.

Otyken: “Chukotka”

Otyken are a group from remote central Siberia. They are all members of small tribes (Chulym, Ket, Selkup, Tuvan, etc.) who speak historically related Turkic languages. There are only some 40 native speakers of the Chulym language left in the world. Like other tribes in the region, they were decimated by centuries of invasion and war and, more recently, by rampant environmental destruction starting in the Soviet era.

Otyken incorporate throat singing and chanting into their vocals, as well as imitating wild animal sounds and bird calls. Their lead singer, Azyan, has no formal training but an astonishing voice. When they were founded, they started off doing straight-up folk music. When they began to add a fusion of folk with modern rock sounds, they found themselves attracting fans worldwide.

They are fully aware that their language and culture are dying. For them, it is integrally tied to the destruction of their natural environment. Part of their purpose in performing and recording their music is to leave behind a record of their world before it is gone. They are becoming a symbol and rallying point for indigenous people all over the world who have suffered the same kind of fate — guests in their own land, watching that land burned and poisoned.

This is their most recently released song. It takes the concept of saving the world and makes it extremely personal.

If sounds like this can’t inspire us, then perhaps we are already dead.

Sources:

“How Denmark’s Heilung Are Creating “Amplified History” With Human Bones, Throat Singing” (Revolver, 2018) https://www.revolvermag.com/music/how-denmarks-heilung-are-creating-amplified-history-human-bones-throat-singing

Heilung facebook page

“Aurora Aksnes says she hates sound of her own voice” (2015, The DailyMirror) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-lewis-christmas-advert-singer-6790489

“Without Darkness the World Would Be Boring and Life Would Be Very Flat” (Vice, 2016) https://www.vice.com/en/article/64ymyb/aurora-interview-all-my-demons-greeting-me-as-a-friend

“Mother Earth’s Warrior” (2018, The Line of Best Fit) https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/longread/mother-earths-warrior-aurora-interview-2018

Wikipedia pages on “Heilung” and “Aurora”

Ethnologue : https://www.ethnologue.com/

Linguistic Society of America https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/endangered-languages

Otyken official website : https://otyken.ru/?lang=en