Wolf Rune is the first solo album by Sinikka Langeland, the Norwegian folk singer and kantele player from Finnskogen. This "Finnish forest" in Norway has long been her home and her subject. With only her voice and three kanteles she sets rune songs, folk hymns and dances beside her own songs and poems by Meister Eckhart, Olav H. Hauge and Jon Fosse. It is her sixth album for ECM.
Langeland, born in Kirkenær in 1961, took up the kantele in 1981 and has spent decades collecting and reviving the old songs and music of Finnskogen. Her ECM work began with Starflowers and continued with ensemble projects such as The Land That Is Not, The Half-Finished Heaven and The Magical Forest. Wolf Rune was recorded in December 2019 at Rainbow Studio in Oslo, engineered by Martin Abrahamsen, with Manfred Eicher as executive producer.
The instruments shape the album. Her 39-string concert kantele, built by Hannu Koistinen, covers about five and a half octaves and carries most of the songs. A 15-string kantele is bowed on the opening Moose Rune and plucked on the hymn-like I See Your Light. A dry five-string instrument is heard alone in the two brief Kantele Prayer pieces. On When I Was The Forest, a setting of Eckhart, she uses an E-bow on the bass strings. Row My Ocean sets a poem by Jon Fosse, and Don't Come To Me With The Entire Truth uses Olav H. Hauge's text in Robert Bly's English translation. Winter Rune combines the five-string and concert instruments, moving from ambient spaciousness into briefly bowed, abstract textures before her voice enters.
Critics responded warmly. In Songlines, which gave the album five stars, Fiona Talkington called it "a must-have release, with Langeland casting an exquisite spell over every track". Michael Tucker of Jazz Journal singled out Winter Rune and the title track for their control of space and timbre, and concluded that "this is, quite simply, a wonderful album." Alison Bentley in London Jazz News heard a voice full of artistry and "completely without artifice".
This is the CD edition, ECM 2674, first released on 9 April 2021.
