Episode 20 — Afro-joik, arctic ukuleles and 'Big Boobies Is A State Of Mind'
Recorded across northern Norway, this episode brings together the gloriously named Bitchy Big Boobies Bang Band, Arctic luthier and musician Igor Kill, and the boundary-pushing AfroJoik project in Vadsø. It’s a Norway special about pride, humour, landscape, Sámi identity and why genres are there to be messed with.
Steve talks with the Bang family band about joy, community, Pride and playing for the King of Norway; climbs upstairs to see Igor’s hand-built eight-string tenor ukuleles; then heads east to hear how AfroJoik blend Sámi joik with African rhythmic language, pump organ, djembe, banjo and guitars — using fusion as a way to reclaim and project culture. It all feeds back into Genre Tombola and a deeper question: who gets to define “authentic”?
What we cover
Bitchy Big Boobies Bang Band: Family-band chaos, Pride shows, royal gigs and “Big Boobies Is A State Of Mind” as a serious invitation to stand tall.
Arctic eight-string ukuleles: Igor’s octave courses, mandolin crossover and why doubled strings thicken the sound.
AfroJoik: Fusing Sámi joik with Afro-inspired grooves without cosplay; centering Sámi voices and stories.
History & harm: Suppression of Sámi culture, burned drums and why modern projects like this matter.
Genre Tombola — Joik: Using joik phrasing, repetition and sound-shapes as material rather than museum-pieces.
Further listening & links
Full Transcript
Verbatim transcript, reflowed for readability only. No wording changes have been made.
Hello, my name is Steve Pretty. I'm a musician, composer and performer from London, and welcome to my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin Of The Pieces.This is the show that helps you to hear, understand and enjoy music in new ways.Hello, Musically Curious People, how are you doing? I hope you're doing well and have had a brilliant summer. You can hear that things are slightly different today.I'm recording this outside. I'm, in fact, backstage at a festival over near Prague. It's a beautiful, beautiful day, beautiful festival, right by a river.You can hear the birds and the insects and maybe a sound check from one of the bands going on in the background. Yeah, it's been a busy summer. I hope you guys have all had fantastic summers too.I've had a summer absolutely jam-packed with music of many varieties and all sorts of different stuff going on. I've been really lucky. Lots of some incredible places, which I'm going to be talking a bit more throughout this episode.But before I do that, just a quick recap of the last episode, episode 19. If you haven't listened to that yet, I urge you to go back and check it out. I had a really fascinating chat with Ola Onable, the brilliant singer and songwriter about our collaboration together.The new single from Hackney Colliery Band and Ola is out now. It's called Hacked Soul. I suggest you go and have a listen.We played that on the episode and I had a really interesting chat with Ola about, I guess, partly the songwriting process and we talked about AI. We touched on a lot of different areas and also a deep dive into his beautiful soulful voice. And he explained some of the kind of technicalities of singing and how to approach using your voice as an instrument, as well as his Nigerian roots and how they influenced his songwriting and singing process.Really interesting chat that. And then we looked at Corrido from mexico. That genre of, I guess, kind of gangster brass music, if you like, gangster guitar and brass music about sort of almost glorifying aspects of drug culture and cartel culture in mexico.And I had a really interesting chat with Alex Gonzalez from mexico, a wonderful musician out there. We talked about the different functions of music, the different functions of Corridos. And then I made my own Corrido a kind of diss track, dissing other music podcasts in the spirit of the kind of gangster music that this is supposed to be.So do go back and check out my attempt at a Corrido featuring Alex Gonzalez from mexico. And as always, the full interviews are available on my Patreon. Full video interviews with both Ola and Alex.You can have a listen and have a look if you want to see a little bit more behind the scenes. And also there's all sorts of more goodies on there as always. There's a ticket offer for my big live show coming up at Wilton's Music Hall, about which more later.Super excited about that, it's gonna be a really great night. Got some fantastic guests for that. And there's a ticket offer there.Anyway, go over to originofthepieces.com and sign up for the mailing list, sign up for Patreon. There's a free tier with loads of great stuff on it and then also paid tiers from as little as £1 per month. You can help support the show and keep the podcast flourishing and independent and adventurous to satisfy all your musical curiosity.So go to originofthepieces.com and you can sign up for all that stuff there. Now on to today's show. We've got a real smorgasbord today.It's a bit of a Norway special. You may remember from an earlier episode, if you've been a long time listener, I was setting up a project back in November in North Norway. Well, I've just completed a long tour of North Norway.Well, I was there for about three weeks doing a variety of different things in Norway, having an absolutely phenomenal time. And so today, even though the subjects are as diverse as ever in terms of what we cover, it is all Norway based. So I have a really interesting chat with a band.I'm not going to reveal their name because it's too good, but it's coming up shortly. A kind of community band from a small town in Norway where I was working. And then I talked to, believe it or not, a ukulele maker, an eight-string ukulele maker from North Norway, an Arctic ukulele maker.And then I talked to some Sami musicians, so that Sami people are the native people of Northern Norway and Finland and Sweden. So do stay tuned. Loads of really fascinating stuff coming up.Right, the festival is ramping up here over in Chechia. It's a beautiful night, stars in the sky. This is my last festival of the season, so it felt appropriate to record it kind of backstage at this festival, because it's been an amazing festival season, really.I know I've talked a lot in the show about how difficult many festivals have it, and that is of course the case, but I've been very lucky this year. I've played some wonderful festivals, some really inspiring festivals full of brilliant musicians doing fantastic things, not just musicians, comedians, artists of many stripes. And so it's been super inspiring summer in that sense.So it seemed appropriate, as I say, to record this at this last festival. Anyway, this next section, I have a really interesting interview with a brilliant band from Hemnesberget. Now, Hemnesberget is a small town in Northern Norway.It was the first stop on our Hackney Colliery band North Norway tour, Arctic Circle tour. You know, some bands choose to pursue the money in America, get big in America, get big in Japan. That's the cliché, isn't it?But no, not a Hackney Colliery band. We like to do things differently. We want to be big in the Arctic.And our first stage of that is underway. So it's been a great summer doing that. And Hemnesberget was this beautiful town, absolutely incredible location just tucked in the Arctic Circle.We had a great HUB show there, but also we did a really interesting education project, a couple of us, that I talked about in the previous episode, back in, I think, November 2023. And I talked a little bit about that then. But it was a fantastic education project with musicians from about 15 to 23, something like that.Most of whom had never improvised or certainly composed music before. And we got them to write, kind of collectively compose and improvise an hour's set from scratch and then perform it as the opening concert of this jazz festival. And it was really amazing, it was really inspiring.So, yeah, very excited to be running that. And I think there's all sorts of fun possibilities for that in the future. And the next day we did a pride parade.It was the first time that Hemnesberg had ever had a pride parade. So it was quite a big thing for the town. And I've done London Pride lots of times, played in the march there, and it's really a fantastic thing to do, really exciting.But obviously it's a big thing these days, London Pride is quite commercial, there's lots of big companies involved, and it's a huge thing, the whole of the centre of London shuts down for it. But Hemnesberg Pride was a different affair, right? Because they'd never had it, and it's this small village.So it felt really special and meaningful, and it was a great kind of privilege to be able to do that and lead the parade there for them. We did that, and after the parade, there were a load of concerts from local acts, and we stayed and watched them, and they were really lovely, and I watched this act, and I thought, I have to talk to these people, because this is quite something. So I'm not going to mention the name of the band, because they're going to introduce it themselves, and you'll see why in a second.So handing over to this brilliant band from Hemnesberga.You want to poop?Hey guys, so can you introduce yourselves, please?Yeah, we can. We are Bitch Big Boobies Bang Band from Hemnesberget.Just say that again, because it's such a great name. I think I just can't hear the name enough.Well, it's Bitch Big Boobies Bang Band.And why is it called this? Because it's quite an unusual name.It is. It is an unusual name.It's a long name and story.Okay.I think because we are all family. We're in the same family. Our last name is the Bang, as in Bang Band.And many years ago, we were at a party. I think it was at yours house, actually. And Hanna's house.And we were like, we should start a band someday. Yes, we should. You know, we were young and had courage.And so we thought we should make a good name. And I think we just played with the B in Bang. And so we ended up with Bitch Big Boobies Bang Band.But we never started the band. It took many years after that.At that point, we didn't even play instruments, I think.Just a little bit.Yeah, there were four of us.Trine, Lisa, Trine, Lisa, Katrine. Almost the same names.Either very simple or very confusing.And I remember the first G.Yeah, we actually have it on tape, our first G that we played together.No way. That's a nice thing to have, your first ever chord.It was so touchy, I had tears in my eyes.Oh, we can start a band now. We can play one chord. And we're like, we already have the band name, so then we were off and we only played for birthdays in our family. But then slowly we started getting gigs. And we just kept the name.And then we got a little bit bigger gigs. And we were like, what should we do about this name? Because it's kind of weird.People are asking. And I think we just decided that we're just going to own it. It's fun.It's weird. It's like it's perfect for it. It's actually perfect.And so we just kept it.It's great. I think it's good to stand your ground. Because the first time I'd heard of this band was before.So we've just done a pride parade, right? We're in here in Hemnes. And we just did a pride parade with the Hackney Colliery Band.And before we did that, you came up to me and gave me this t-shirt. And you said, I enjoyed your show last night. And I wanted to give you a t-shirt.I said, oh, that's very kind. And then I said, it's the name of my band. It's called the Bitchy Big Boobies Big Bang Band.Like, what? Yeah. And then, but you have to tell me, so I'm wearing this t-shirt now.And you have to tell me the slogan of the band, because this is, I think, this is a lesson for us all.Yeah, the slogan is Big Boobies is a state of mind.Big Boobies is a state of mind.It's profound. Because if you feel like they're big, they just are.It's profound. It makes you think.It really does.So, but what, so when you say you came together to form a band, what made you want to do that? You said you didn't play instruments. What was it about music in particular that you wanted to get together and do?Well, we like to sing. But in order to sing, we had to get someone to play for us. And we didn't want that.We thought, let's just try ourselves.And we have all our parents and families, musicians or singers. So it kind of felt natural. And we did actually start a choir here in Hemnesberget.So we all have been singing.Just for the listeners, who don't know, how big is Hemnesberget? How many people?1,500, around, yes.Yeah, so small to have so much musical talent, right?It is, but it's kind of known for its music scene and culture.We have a jazz festival for many years, and we have been participating as momentaries. Yeah, for in all of these years. And I remember after seeing one show with a Swedish band called Baskary, and there was this great banjo player.And I actually picked up the banjo after that concert. I think it's about 12 years ago. So I think it has contributed to the music interest.We wanted to play because we've seen all these amazing bands that have come here. We wouldn't have experienced this if we hadn't had the Jazz Festival because there's been a lot of great artists and bands here. Greta plays the banjo. I play the ukulele. I don't play it well.I just picked it up because I wanted to kind of be part of the gang. But my father-in-law, he used to make ukuleles. So that was natural.And also it doesn't have a lot of strings. And we have the horn and the bass and the guitar and guitar. And we do play the accordion.That's fun. We should have brought that as well.We played for the Norwegian king.We did.Did you give him a t-shirt?But he did smile and it was kind of fun looking at him when they presented us. Because it had to go through a lot of kind of hoops to get our band and our name approved to play for the king just because of the name. So that was fun and the queen, but she didn't smile.I have a sticker of the king on my accordion before he came here. He is lying like this.We have had the king with us on your accordion.And how do you rehearse often? How often do you rehearse?We try to rehearse every Thursday.Yeah, and then life happens, but before every gig we come together.One of you said something interesting earlier, which I just wanted to talk to you about, which was that some people have book groups or groups for knitting or whatever else. And someone said that this is your version of that.It's common with, you know, women our age to kind of join these groups. You know, we have a wine club or a knitting club or food club, and our band is our club. So it's, we love to be together.And so everything we do is fun. And even though we're not doing anything, it's fun.So we also try to play so that we can go places.And we also was part of a German documentary.Yeah.So we have quite a few German followers on social media.And it's fun because every time they do a rerun of the documentary, we get some new followers. So we will just call each other. Oh, they did a rerun.Amazing. And what is it about music particularly that you think brings you together and is important? Why is it music?Why is it not painting or?Because it's so easy to spread some joy. And that's what we want to do with our music, because we know we're not professional and we don't play perfectly. So we just want to, of course, we have a lot of fun ourselves and we get to see new places and experience things and meet new people.And we see that we bring a lot of joy.Yeah, we think so. We do some of the old songs. Like there was this band in the 70s called De Syngende Husmödra, The Singing Housewives.And we do some of their songs. And so a lot of the old people know these songs. So we've been playing at them.What is it called?The old folks home.And to see the joy in their eyes and see their singing along, it's the best feeling. So I think, I think that's what music does. Yes, and it all it makes us come together because every day we have a lot of things to do. We have like a thousand kids together, but not together.And so we share everything, we share everything. But, you know, just meeting for practice and band practice makes us mostly talking. Oh, we talk for an hour and then we play for an hour.Okay, let me just hit one more question. It's sort of similar to what we were just talking about. But I try and ask most of my guests, what's the point of music?To feel something, I think. You can use music when you're sad and when you're happy and it can help you get your feelings out maybe. If you want to cry and you just put on a sad song and you can let your tears come.If you want to cry, you put on Bitch Big Boobies Bang.If you want to dance, your music wanted us to dance.I think today in the parade when you guys were playing, I was so happy. I was dancing and this is the best day.And I think we can all agree that Big Boobies is indeed a state of mind. What a slogan, what a slogan, especially when you're playing for the king. So thank you so much to the Bitchy Big Boobies Bang Band for that brilliant interview.Now, after their interview, I got chatting to them and they said, oh, listen, you should really talk to, to be honest, I don't know what relation, I think is one of their dads. It's confusing because a lot of them are related, as they say, that's why they're called the Bang Band, is because their surname is Bang. So they're all kind of related in ways that I don't quite understand.But at the house I was interviewing them in, one of their dads lived there and I was told that he had this amazing musical history and that he was an instrument maker. So of course, I wanted to chat to him too. So this is the entertaining noises section of the show, where I talk to people about their instruments and how they work, and how they're put together, and the different sounds they can make.And this is quite something, because this next person I'm talking to is, as far as I can tell, one of only, what, maybe three or four people in the world, as far as I can see, making eight string ukuleles. And he's certainly the only person doing that within the Arctic Circle, Honolulu and the Arctic Circle. That's where you can get hold of your eight string ukuleles.So here is an interview with a very unique individual in the same house as I interviewed the Bitchy Big Boobies Bang Band. And again, I'm not going to introduce him by name for reasons that will become clear. So would you mind introducing yourself?Yeah. Well, I always had different names, you know, as a musician, you know, you go around and you play and you find you have different names. But the last name in the game was Igor.I guess because I'm a little bit bigger than the other one. And so the next band, you know, there was one Igor. So I had to have a different name, a person name.So they called me Igor Kill.Igor Kill?From the, you know, the movies. Igor Kill.OK. Yeah.So and it stuck.OK. So Igor Kill. Igor Kill. I've been called Igor Kill for so long. And I started recording music stuff. And, you know, in the album it says Igor Kill.And you're a musician amongst many other things, right? I've just been speaking to some of your family who are in the, yeah, the Bitchy Big Boobies Bang Band. Yeah.Yeah.Fantastic. We're just watching them. And they said I should talk to you because you have some amazing history as a musician and as an instrument maker as well.Because you play all sorts of different stringed instruments, right?Yeah, mandolin, guitar, and so forth. Originally, I was a bass guitar player.And this instrument you were just showing me when you very kindly had me into your amazing house, amazing old historic house here. This is a ukulele, but it's a very special ukulele.Yeah, this is what they call an eight-string ukulele. And it is a tenor, so it's bigger than the usual small ones.Can you just talk us through and show us what makes it special? Because you said it's a tenor ukulele, so as you say, quite a lot bigger than a standard ukulele.Yeah, well, it's got eight strings instead of this traditional four-string.Yeah, and can you show us and maybe just play how they're tuned?So like a traditional is tuned like...And then we have the double string.And if you strum it, it's like...And from there, you know, it's endless, you know. You can do all kinds of stuff.So, what's the purpose of the eight strings, of the extra strings?The purpose, main purpose is to get a fuller sound. This is the mandolin of the ukuleles. So, you get the fuller sound.And a fourth string is not close to that. So, and I liked it.It sounds amazing. And so, just to go over it again, the bottom two strings have, yeah, that these ones are in octaves, as you say. So, you get that whole octave there, which is nice.Every time you play that, you get, that's it, like that.And then the double.And it might not be clear to people why you would have double strings that are tuned the same, but that is because it still thickens the sound, right? Because there are slightly different, there are slight tuning discrepancies between the two strings and that means that, yeah, it fills out. People might think of strings being out of tune being a problem, but actually here it's a real advantage because it fills out the sound.Well, it could be a problem if you don't keep up, you know, with the tuning and stuff, it runs out of tune. I know it is a problem, but you know, that's with everything in life.Could you just do a bit of playing for us? Could you just have a bit of a...Beautiful, thank you for that, that was lovely. And I was just watching your right hand as you were playing, because you're using all of your fingers, right, including your thumb. So you often pluck the base end of the string with your thumb, and then play with all four of your other fingers. Yeah.It takes a little while to get used to it.I'm sure, yeah, and it's quite different from playing a normal ukulele.Yeah, yeah. It is. Yeah.Big difference. So, it's got some limitations, you know, of course, like every instrument has some limitations. But you know, you pick that up, you know, with a double string, you know, and you have that.So, there's all kinds of different ways to go.It's lovely hearing that sort of tremolo, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.That's a little extra.And you make these eight string ukeleles as well, right?Yeah, because when I got back from the States after 12 years, you know, I brought this and people were amazed, you know, wow, what is this thing? Oh, what a sound! Listen to that!And I couldn't import it, you know, for they were made only in Honolulu. So I started to make them. It was not easy, but, you know, I got the hang of it after a little while.Had you made other instruments before?Yes, I have made the mandolins, I made the guitarists and bass guitarists. So it wasn't all fresh, you know.Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, that must present some unique challenges. But I find that amazing that you're here in Hemnesberget, in this tiny town, and you're making these very unusual instruments from Honolulu.It's amazing.It's crazy. It is kind of crazy, yeah. But it was fun.Yeah, of course. And that's what it should be about, right?Yeah.And thanks once again for that fantastic interview from this extraordinary chap. Very interesting stuff. Right.Now I'm going to move over to Vadser. And now this is a town in very far northeastern Norway. It's right on the border with Russia, literally only a few miles from the border with Russia.It's a very small town, but again, they have a great festival there. I mean, it's so inspiring having these festivals in these far flung places. The airports are so small that the planes are kind of like buses, right?You get on in one place and then they stop maybe four times along the route. To the extent that our sound engineer accidentally got off at the wrong stop, just got off, started happily taking photos of reindeer because the airports are microscopic, they're basically just little sheds. So he was straight through, straight out the front, taking photos of reindeer while the rest of us were still on the plane trying to call him.And we were like, yeah, it's not our stop. You're going to be stuck here in Hammerfest if you don't get back on the plane. So anyway, this is Vance and the Vranger Festival.And I talked to this absolutely brilliant band about Joiking. Now Joiking is, as you'll learn shortly, the music of the Sami people of Northern Norway and Finland and what they call Finnmark, which is that area basically very far north-east Norway, Finland, Sweden, that kind of region. And unfortunately, as I've said before, when I'm interviewing people backstage at festivals, sometimes the audio is a real challenge.And the festival is going on in the background. I interviewed them on this beautiful boat. There was a kind of after party was held on this boat, but there was still other gigs going on in the background.And so, yeah, the audio has been a bit of a challenge to make audible. Hopefully it is OK for you. But I really wanted to play this for you guys, because I think it's fascinating about the different roles that music can have in traditional cultures and the fact that a lot of time when we have oral music cultures, we don't really know what the history is, particularly when those cultures have been repressed, as they have been with the Sami peoples.My name is Erik, I play the violin.My name is Boris, I play the drums.I am Ola, I play the banjo and the pump organ.I'm John, I do vocals.I'm Viktor, I'm mainly guitar. Yeah, fantastic.I just saw your show. Can you tell me the name of your group?We call this AfroJoik.It was a really fantastic gig. Loved it. Can you tell me firstly, Afro refers to music from Africa.From listening to it, it sounds like West Africa, largely, but maybe different parts of Africa as well. But can you tell me what Joik means? Because this is not something that my listeners might know.Joik is the Sami traditional way of singing. Actually, we call it in the Sami language, which is Joikbos, which basically means that way of singing.My listeners, every episode we cover different music from all over the world, so they might not know anything really about the Sami people. So can you tell me about who the Sami people are, and a little bit more about the culture?So the Sami people are the indigenous group of Norway, Northern Norway, North Sweden, Finland, and also Russia. And we are divided by seven or eight extant languages. Traditionally, the Sami people are known for reindeer herding, and that's also what we practice today.And so when it comes to the music, can we explain a little bit more about what this, the joik is, so you say the AfroJoik.So what is it?What is that made on the water, basically?For maybe nine, ten years ago, I started researching traditional music from around the world, because I have heard from somewhere, there should be some traditional music out there that is similar to joik. So I just started to search around, and soon enough I came across some African music. I first heard some music from East Africa, Tanzania, I think it was, that reminded me very much about joik and especially the tone language that we have in joik.So I just kept on listening and digging.These connections are really interesting. But before we explore those connections a bit more, I just like to understand from a position of complete ignorance as to what makes joik a particular style or a particular approach to music that is different from the way that people might think of music otherwise. Joik is more like it's melody based, of course. It's strictly a cappella style of singing. A joik is supposed to be a melody that is usually given to something or someone, for example, a person, an animal, a place.It's like the musical name.Yeah, it's like a musical name because the melody is supposed to depict a picture of the place or the animal or the person that we are joiking about. Actually, we don't say that we are joiking about something or someone. We say that we are joiking someone because the melody is like a painting of that person.Usually, we don't have lyrics that are obligatory. Joik is the melody that is supposed to describe or depict a person.So, when you're Joiking, are you using words? Are you using these words that we recognize, or are they more sounds? No.Well, there can be some words, but they are not the most important part of a Joik. The most important part is the vocal style and the melodies themselves.So the words are sort of, do they refer to specific things, or are they just there as a kind of holding sound?So, when we include words in a Joik, the words are supposed to, let's say that I'm Joiking a person, so the words are supposed to just tell who I'm Joiking and what kind of person it is. It may be like a story about the person I'm Joiking, or it may be a quotation from the person like something he has said. But firstly, the melody is like the main part of it.It's used a lot of like he, lo, le, la, and that doesn't mean anything. It's just like your vocals singing or yoyking. But you can like say as a hello, le, la and the name of the guy, you are yoyking and hello, le, la.He was a big person. Hello, le, la. He had a lot of reindeers.Hello, le, la.He was a witch man.Yeah. I see.Hello, le, la is just like vocals.But you find this a lot along the pop songs, how just noises like this, right? As part of the chorus sometimes, and a lot of music from all over the world. But even when we, you know, someone like Stingweave and uses this sort of just noise.It's natural vocals to sing on. That's maybe why the Sami people like use it. Because it's the natural vocals to sing on.What are the instruments that are associated with the Sami music side of things, if anything? Because there's a very strong African instrumental influence in your set. But like, what are the other, are there any, apart from the yoyking, is there any particular sound from the instruments that is?Because you play a very unusual violin.Yeah, well, I use like a traditional which violin, yeah, Maring Fele, which has like many strings. But it's like kind of the same technique.But looking at it, it has many strings. Does it have sympathetic strings?Yeah, so I have the same strings on top, and then it's strings underneath, just vibrating and making like river or other things. Yeah. So this, to explain to my listeners who might not know what this means, it's basically you have the same strings as the violin, but as you say, you have these strings that that vibrate in sympathy and call it sympathetic.Yeah, I can tune them. I can choose which tones I want to like sing. I want to sing in.And then, yeah.A bit like, so this is something that you hear a lot, for example, in Indian music or music for Iraq.Maybe I hear it like in Baroque instruments like the Ola Damora.Yeah, like, yeah.It's really lovely, lovely sound. It is beautiful ornamentation.So, you have the violin and the vocals. Is there any other particularly Sammy sound of the instrumentals?Yeah, well, traditionally, there's not an instrument. Like there is the ritual drum, but we don't know much how it was used because it was during the christenings of the Northern and the Sami people. They burned all the drums, so we don't really know how it was used.So the music is basically vocal, so there's not any instrument. So we choose to use instruments, and of course then we interpret, and we just steal from other traditions as a way to accompany the oiks. But the music itself, tradition is just vocals.But that, in a way, because of this, presumably this was something that was taken away in a forceful colonial kind of way. But, so that kind of awful situation has provided a strange opportunity now, right, for you to find your own sounds with this music I guess. Is that fair to say?It's a kind of liberty, or it's a kind of freedom in it. We can use this project to just explore how can we just steal ways of playing from different parts of Africa. We're not exactly playing African music, but we're kind of just...Borrowing. Borrowing and stealing ways of playing, because we love that music, and okay, so we can play these kind of rhythms, we can play the guitar in this way, without trying to exactly play African music. But we're kind of just getting inspired and finding, you know, structures and ways of interplay to accompany traditional Joik.Since there's not any knowledge about how the drums were used and what, so we can't really know. So there's a kind of freedom that I find.It's a kind of opportunity.The music that you're playing, some of the influences that you're playing with the drums from Africa, from East Africa, from West Africa, wherever. And how did you discover this link, or how did you find this link between these things? Because they're not obvious things.So you found some of the pieces we did and it's actually a traditional yoke and it's kind of just combined with a melody from Kenya or Tanzalia or just to show that they're so closely connected and just with the little tweaks, they're basically the same thing. It's a universal way of relating to rhythm and singing, using your voice.Because the singing sounds for someone who doesn't speak either Norwegian or the Sami language or any African language, any English, you don't know as a listener whether you're listening to an African language or a Sami language or, you know, like, it's fascinating. It's really interesting because we don't know whether, because it's got a very, the band has got this very kind of African sound, but we know that there's this whole cultural heritage behind it and it's a really interesting way of approaching it.If we go to the drums, you have a kind of more of an African drum setup, right?Yeah, I basically, I use this djembe, and I have a snare drum, and I call it a hand drum, but it's basically like, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a scottish marching drum, actually a marching drum, but I use my hands on it because it sounds nice, and I use also a stompbox. I'm really inspired by several guys who's been drumming to Joik for centuries, and they have their own unique style with muting the hand drum and also like tuning it while they play. So they get this sort of like talk drum sound.Because that, and yeah, and again, there's that big commonality between the talking drum where you're moving your hand to change the pitch. The sound of the drum, which is present, I guess, particularly in West Africa.Yeah, and that makes it possible to like play melodies. It makes it more like fun to play, to unicate with the melody and trying out some different patterns, which is African based or like African inspired. To play with the Joik is a unique style because the Joik is dragging in the time specter.And so it also makes this connection between the indigenous people in Africa, because they are also, I feel like they are also dragging in the time and stretching, which makes it really unique.The kind of tension of the rhythm, keeping a steady pulse, but also dragging or pushing or yeah. Yeah, super effective.You play both the pamporgan and the banjo.Yeah.Can you talk about why you chose those, presumably you played those instruments to your keyboards?I usually play the keyboards, but I find it better to get close to the melody when I play a banjo or a guitar or something, because then I like touching the tones, and I can bend it like the quarter tones or something to match the yoik. So you're like on the keyboard, that's so you're so stuck with the system.When you're playing, you're trying to match the, you're trying to play with the yoik there.Yeah, but just find it better to do it with a stringed instrument than a keyboard.Sure, but from a point of view of what you're trying to do is, you're playing the same melody as the singer.Sometimes, or like a second voice or something else, but if you're on a piano or a keyboard or a pump organ, you're touching the piano and there's coming a sound. But when you're stringing the instrument, it's more better to play music. Isaac, so, but...More like the voice, right? You can bend it.Yeah, I find it more dynamic. But we borrowed this pump organ from the local brewery. And they had it in their cellar where they make their beer.So we asked if we could borrow it. It's nice to have like the pads and fill out some...You just found the organ in the local brewery. That's great. I love that.But also, I think, you know, the key thing with the keyboards and piano is it's harmony based. So kind of guitar and banjo is... You can play notes rhythmically, but you don't have to play harmonies.You can play like just the roots and play melodies. And you have to collect hints towards harmonies. It's much easier, I guess, than piano, because it's a harmony based instrument.Yeah, you're defining it more.And guitar and banjo is a rhythmic, a percussive instrument.And you play guitar in the band, right?Yeah, that's the bass.And bass is...He's doing both the bass and the guitar at the same time. So we don't have a bass player.Yes, I noticed that.The bass players in Norway are really expensive.So...And I really hate you.Can you talk about how your guitar playing in the band relates to both the Sami traditions? Because I know you study this culture, but also I'm hearing a lot of African influences in your play. Can you just talk about how those two are connected or not connected?I've been listening to mostly West African music for a long time. But 10 years ago, I thought that, okay, I have to really do this. So I started to completely diving into it.They made doing the research and transcribing and practicing and transcribing and just by ear and just learning tunes and thinking patterns, mostly like Ali Farko Tore and his peers and all the guys that he was a mentor for. And also like Bassequil, Faiyot and Chora players and string instruments from Ali, Sennegard and so I kind of developed a technique derived from that and tried to make my own way of doing it. Mostly like a rhythmic percussive way of playing.And then I started and then I did a master degree at the University of Trondheim, where I tried to learn the joik tradition and the project was like playing this on the guitar. And I found that all this African stuff that I've been working on, it fit like a glove, rhythmically. So to accompany a lot of the joiks that I've been listening to and that I've learned.So this way of playing guitar was a really, really, really good vehicle for playing these joic melodies. So that project is just still evolving, trying to do a fusion of these techniques that I've learned and do my own thing with them and also incorporating the joic melodies into this in a rhythmic way.This is absolutely fascinating. Just a more general question about the role of music in Sami culture. So leaving aside the band for a second, like the broader role of music plays in Sami culture.So this is a project. It's like a commission, and hopefully for more things to come. But these guys have a really hot Sami group, which is a big part of the Sami contemporary music scene.Oh, great. They won the Norwegian Grammy Award.So there are a lot of young Sami modern artists.I'm interested in both the current state of that and the contemporary bands you're talking about, but also whatever we know about the past. Because if we're up in, you know, the Sami people are based up here, and we're in the Arctic Circle. So yeah, in quite remote places.And I'm just very interested as to what the role of music is in these communities where you're away from big cities. So I'm just interested in why music is there, what role it has, why it's important or not.So to take it back a bit. So the Sámi people, we have undergone a lot of, some pressure from the Orwa, the Ouichu, the Ouichu States. And back in the 60s and 70s, we had some rebellions here in Isatmi.And the music helped us a lot with getting through all of it. And historically speaking, the contemporary part of the Sámi music has been politically motivated. And it has been used in combination with demonstrations like to get our points across.But the strictly traditional music, it has been disappearing gradually now for some decades. But as I see it today, it's an upswing in Ouichu-related music, and it's getting more accepted, should I say, outside of the Sami culture, the Sami society as well. For Sami musicians, I think we are in a golden age right now.Yeah, that's amazing. That's really great to hear. I appreciate that maybe we don't know that much, but what was the role of music in the days before, I guess going back a long time, the traditional Reindeer herding days.Was music used for communication, or for entertainment, or for ritual?Oh, absolutely all of them. So the communication part could be, for example, that when we were herding our reindeer, we used to yoke to communicate to the reindeer herd that there are people here, and also to signal to predators, don't dare to come near us now, because here are people, and also communication between people. If I was herding at this side, and the other guy was like two kilometers away, we could still communicate by yoking, because the localizations and the vocal tones, they cut through much better than just talking, of course.The social part, it was more like, for instance, when we met a person, and as a greeting, we would yoke that person. And if we didn't know that person's yoke, we would yoke maybe his parents. And that's a fine way of just expressing that, hey, you're being seen, and you're acknowledged.I know who you are.Yeah, I know who you are.Where you come from.Yeah, and how much radio you have.Money, money, money. Thanks so much, guys. Where can people find your music?Because I know you said this is a new project, but where can people find out about what you guys do, either individually or together?Like, this was the opportunity.Yeah, they have a band and the music is kind of related.It's still John André Joiking, and we're playing, it's also some of the music are like, so you can tell it's African-inspired, but it's not like that specific, but yeah, the band is called Gabba, like G-A-B-B-A, and then you will hear John's voice. But maybe this was like the concert we were supposed to play. If you want to hear us, just book a gig with us, and we will play, and we will show you.Well, hopefully, you will come over to the UK or other places. But thanks so much, guys. It was fantastic.Well, I hope you found that as fascinating as I did. I learned so much about semi-culture and different musical traditions and the connections with West African music. And yeah, fascinating.As always, that video is up on my Patreon. You can see the beautiful boat setting that we're on and lots of video there as well of the performance, the band performance on the stage there. If you want to see what's going on and hear a little bit more of that, I've put some extended clips there, so you can check out what they're up to.I'm going to put some more links to their work in the show notes and different bands that they talk about there. There's all sorts of stuff that we covered there that I think will be worth a bit more of a dig, if you are interested. So that's episode 20.That's my Norway special. It's been an amazing summer. There is so much more to come.One of the great things about this summer and being backstage at all these really interesting festivals is I've had a chance to chat to some really incredible musicians of all sorts, of all flavors, of all backgrounds about what they do and why they do it and the sounds that they make. So there's loads of really interesting stuff coming up. Also, I have started doing these live festival shows.I've really enjoyed putting together these live shows for festivals. It's been really gratifying to see how people respond to the ideas that I'm tackling in this podcast, the different guests that I've had. It's been really lovely to do.And so there's gonna be stuff that's gonna be playing out on this podcast feed over the next few weeks from these festivals. But also, it's probably worth saying that when I do these live shows, I don't just record the thing and then put it out as a podcast. I try and make a really great live show for a festival or for Wilhelms Music Hall or wherever else I'm doing it.And then I trim it down and turn bits of it into the podcast, as you can probably tell. But it's kind of worth bearing that in mind because the live shows, I think they're really special and unique things happen at those shows that wouldn't really work in purely audio form. So the next one, once again, is the 30th of November.Super excited about that. I've got some absolutely fantastic guests for that one. I'm going to be announcing soon.It's going to be really, really fun. The last one we did back in January this year, 2024, was amazing. We had a choir, we had Acne Coloury Band, we had Chris Lindtok, we had all sorts of stuff.And this next one is going to be very different, but no less exciting and unusual and insightful, I hope as well. We're going to have loads of stuff for your musically curious minds and ears. So if you go to Wilton's Music Hall and look for my name, you can find that there.And once again, there is a discount code on my Patreon. If you go to the Patreon, or sign up for the mailing list on originofthepieces.com, you can sign up to the Patreon for zero pounds. If you just want to be part of the community, or if you're able to afford a small contribution every month, it's one pound or five pounds or anything you can afford.And that helps us to make this show, pay some expenses, helps to cover some costs, all that sort of thing. So go to originofthepieces.com. So much more to come.Speaking of which, the next episode should now be in two weeks. This summer's been an interesting experiment in trying to get them out regularly. It's been quite tricky because I've been traveling a lot and I've had family commitments and lots of other things.So I've been recording stuff in a frenzy. I've got so much stuff in the bank now, which I'm really excited to get out to your ears. But it's been quite tricky to actually get a podcast episode out to you, but now normal service will resume.And yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff. So please spread the word, review the show, all of that stuff. I'm not going to try and list all of the credits this week because we had so many great people, but all the credits will be in the show notes along with links as usual.So the genre tombola this week was Yoiking. If you're new to the show, that's where a random genre is chosen for me. And I have a deep dive into that and try and work out how the music works and things.But because I was up in northern Norway and I had the chance to talk to these Sami musicians and record a load of their music, I thought Yoiking is this week. So Yoiking, you can cross that off your bingo card if you're keeping score of the genres. Good luck, that's a pretty big bingo card, 1300 genres.But meanwhile, I am working on those other genres that have been drawn for me over the past few weeks. So don't worry, those things will be coming soon. Meanwhile, it only remains for me to thank you once again for listening.Please spread the word, all of that stuff. The theme song is by me and Hackney Collery Band and Angelique Kidjo. And thank you to all of my amazing guests this episode.And I will speak to you Musically Curious Folk in a couple of weeks. Bye!Big boobies is a state of mind.Big boobies is a state of mind.It's profound. Because if you feel like they're big, they just are.It's profound. It makes you think.