From avant-jazz and throat singing, to folk-infused trip hop: is Eivør Pálsdóttir prog or not? Over to you!
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“Her music spans folk, jazz, electronic and rock and adds a bit of Kate Bush, so yes, it’s progressive for me with a mix of new and traditional sounds. The song Silvitni has it all.”
ink Floyd at Pompeii. Jean-Michel Jarre at the Giza Plateau. Sigur Rós in an abandoned Icelandic herring factory. Prog has always enjoyed a flair for the dramatic, or at least the downright bizarre, when it comes to live shows. The latest artist to tackle an unexpected venue is singer-songwriter Eivør, who chose to play beneath a tall cliff in a sea-tossed corner of her native Faroe Islands in August 2020.
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The site in question – Tinghella, a Viking gathering ground from the Middle Ages – is no easy reach. In fact, Eivør had to abseil to the makeshift stage. “I have a friend in the Faroe Islands who’s an adventurer,” she explains. “And she had this idea of me doing a concert at this place, down the cliff. Somehow she managed to talk me into it. I was terrified, but it was fun. We had to get all my gear – speakers, amps, everything – down with a rope. A hundred people came to watch the show and they all abseiled down too. I love crazy stuff like that.”
“She is incredible. Is what she does prog? Who cares, frankly. All I know is that her albums are amazing.”
A taste for adventure has always been part of Eivør Pálsdóttir’s creative life. She was a Faroese TV star at 13, moved to Iceland to study classical singing while still in her teens and ultimately settled in Denmark. The music she made along the way – from traditional folk to trip hop, windswept prog to free jazz – served to echo the restlessness of her physical journey.