Johanna Elina Sulkunen invokes imaginary landscapes with her voice, electronics and a stellar ensemble on the album Terra

LINE UP
Johanna Elina Sulkunen – voc & compositions
Halvcirkel:
Pernille Kristianssen – violin
Mika Persdotter – viola
Nicole Hogstrand – cello
Carolyn Goodwin – sax, clarinet
Francesco Bigoni – sax, clarinet
Henrik Pulz Melbye – sax, clarinet
Anders Filipsen- keys
Anders Vestergaard – drums

With the second part of her trilogy with the solo project Sonority, the Finnish experimental vocalist creates a global vision while being trapped in Copenhagen, and invites the listener to question our modern life and its often destructive relation to nature.

Ironically, in a time where the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most of us into involuntary isolation, vocalist and experimental composer Johanna Elina Sulkunen was forced to abandon her plan of isolating herself in a small cottage in Iceland to create her new album, Terra. Her intention was to make field recordings in the Icelandic nature and use them as part of her work with the follow-up to her acclaimed album, Koan (2018) – an album which was based on field recordings from Japanese Buddhist temples. Instead, due to the pandemic, the Copenhagen-based Finnish musician was in isolation in her own home studio with a bunch of electronics and acoustic recordings from the studio. Here she had to draw inspiration from imaginary landscapes and Copenhagen skies instead in her thematic exploration of how the voice resonates with nature.

Then again, this plot twist in the making of the new album – the second part of a planned trilogy from her solo project Sonority – seems to tap into some urgent themes that are also reflected in Sulkunen’s work. As she says about the ideas behind the album: “In the times of a worldwide pandemic with all its social implications, the acceleration of climate change and the significance of mass-scale globalization has led many to question their values and the current modern way of living. Not least, myself.”

Not only did Koan define a vocal electro acoustic space accompanied by field recordings from Buddhist temples. As the title suggests, the album was also an interpretation of Zen Buddhist koan texts. An exploration of the paradoxical wisdom of the koan, but also composing from their phonetic qualities. By breaking language into pieces she discovered sonic qualities as material for compositions and improvisations for voice and electronics.

On Terra she continues the work with Zen Buddhism and the koan as well as her own lyrics, but she expands her musical space considerably and explores the transformation of the vocal language into instruments such as strings, horns and drums, letting the qualities of texts lead to the result. To achieve this, she has invited an extraordinary and international team of musicians along for the journey – with musicians such as Carolyn Goodwin, Francesco Bigoni, Henrik Pulz Melbye, Anders Vestergaard and the acclaimed string ensemble Halvcirkel joining her on the sessions while post production was done by Aske Zidore.