Biography
"To me, joiking is the deepest way to give out my feelings and my background," said Sami joiker Wimme Saari. "It makes my life fuller." From childhood onward he absorbed the wordless vocal tradition of the Sami, also known as the Lapp people, whose territories stretch across Scandinavia, frequently above the Arctic Circle. For centuries these communities lived as nomadic reindeer herders, though many later established permanent settlements; Wimme himself was raised in such a house in northwest Finland. While his father and elder brother continued the herding life, Wimme regularly overheard joiks performed by others, even though his parents did not practice the art themselves. The prevailing regional form was the North Sami Luohti, widely regarded as the most familiar style of joiking, built on a pentatonic scale and centered on a single subject for each piece. Exposure through radio broadcasts and purchased recordings turned him into an early enthusiast. At fifteen he created his first joik and gave occasional performances, yet never envisioned the practice as a profession. Employment at the Finnish Broadcasting Company eventually led him, in 1986, to archival work that uncovered 1963 recordings of his uncle joiking. The discovery proved revelatory. "In there I found my background," he explained. Deeper study of his people’s joiking tradition prompted him to collaborate with other musicians in a small ensemble that blended jazz with joik. The partnership foundered because the introspective, idiosyncratic character of the joiks resisted integration with additional instruments, yet the effort supplied valuable lessons. Those lessons informed his 1990 partnership with the experimental group Rinneradio, whose goal was the invention of contemporary joik forms. Shedding inherited constraints and discovering his personal approach required patience, so the musicians waited until 1995 to issue their debut Finnish album, titled Wimme. The record achieved instant acclaim, earning selection as Finnish Folk Album of the Year and licensing as one of the first releases on the American independent label NorthSide. During 1996 Wimme composed the joik “Texas” and, by coincidence, received an invitation to perform at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas—an engagement that prompted bandmates to request a companion piece titled “Hawaii.” Earlier joint and solo recordings surfaced under the enigmatic heading File Under: Finnish Ambient Techno Chant, while a second official album, Gierran, appeared in 1999. Wimme’s solo tracks on that release illuminated parallels between joiking and Native American singing, affinities he had already noticed while listening to 1936 field recordings of Navajo songs. He released the album Cugu in 2000 and toured the United States in support of it.
Albums
Singles
