‘We’re learning by doing’: Inside the Faroe Islands’ new music boom

Tórshavn’s music scene is attracting musicians from all over the world and reflecting cultural shifts at home as young Faroese artists make themselves heard.

Spaces Between the Beats is a series spot­light­ing music and cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties around the world, explor­ing their sto­ries as they build resilience and find mean­ing and hope in con­nec­tion.

In mid­sum­mer Tór­shavn bare­ly sees night­fall, just a fleet­ing hour or two of dark before a grey half-light envelops the green-red tim­ber frames and grassy roofs of its build­ings. Nei­ther dawn nor mid­night, it’s an atmos­pher­ic back­drop for what’s happening.

On one of the city’s nar­row streets, queer veg­an shit­punks” Joe & The Shit­boys are com­mand­ing a mosh pit with break­neck songs about hid­den prej­u­dice, false enlight­en­ment and dou­ble stan­dards in a ter­mi­nal­ly ill world. Despite quaint first impres­sions of this toy box town, home to around one-fifth of the 53,000 peo­ple liv­ing on the Faroe Islands, the scene is apt for the country’s first alter­na­tive music show­case, Skrapt – a three-day spot­light on the young tal­ent, ideas and atti­tudes, reflect­ing chang­ing tides in a cul­ture often con­sid­ered to be float­ing adrift some­where between Scot­land and Iceland.

We sing about issues a lot of peo­ple can relate to, but to us they’re pre­vail­ing issues we expe­ri­ence,” says front­man Fríði Djurhu­us, AKA Joe. Cit­ing their song Clos­et­ed Homo­FObe,’ he explains that veiled big­otry pre­vails with­in the Faroe Islands, even if its vio­lent crime rate is among the world’s low­est. We also talk about cli­mate change and every­body think­ing stop­ping using plas­tic bags will save the world when lead­ers are fly­ing in pri­vate jets, destroy­ing every­thing. That doesn’t mean don’t try, but it’s use­ful to point out the absurdity.”

Top to bottom: Joe & The Shitboys. Photos: Gwenaël Akira Helmsdal Carre.

Tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty is anoth­er of The Shit­boys’ hot top­ics. With the nation’s lead­ing eco­nom­ic sec­tors – such as fish­ing and agri­cul­ture – still con­sid­ered the pre­serve of men, tra­di­tion­al gen­der stereo­types per­vade, although Joe believes these views are shift­ing with gen­er­a­tions. In the moun­tains the men go gath­er the sheep, maybe shear them, maybe slay them. Whal­ing too. Every gen­er­a­tion cares a lit­tle bit less about these things,” Joe explains. There’s a the­o­ry that small com­mu­ni­ties want to live in har­mo­ny even when they are dishar­mo­nious. You can have dif­fer­ent views but I’m still gonna see you every day in the store. You can go to a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing and some­one is maybe going to say some­thing prob­lem­at­ic. If you con­front them, you’re [seen as] the prob­lem. The vic­tims have to mask it. But I think those tra­di­tions are chang­ing slowly.”

Sun­ne­va Eysturstein, the co-own­er of Sirkus – a cosy wood-clad venue in cen­tral Tór­shavn – also talks about young Faroese artists push­ing against cen­turies-old expec­ta­tions through dif­fer­ent music, art, dance and lit­er­a­ture.” Skrapt’s co-founder, her inten­tion for the fes­ti­val was to offer a plat­form for alter­nate forms of expres­sion – which ranges from NÖNNEs dark, spa­tial R&B, to Ayphin deliv­er­ing life lessons from his vil­lage of Fuglafjørður with razor sharp flow, to the infec­tious hip hop instru­men­tals of Ghost Notes, with Eysturstein’s bar host­ing the afterparty.

In Tór­shavn you can def­i­nite­ly see things are chang­ing,” says 24-year-old Dania O. Tausen, who moved to the cap­i­tal before the pan­dem­ic from Toftir, a vil­lage on the neigh­bour­ing island of Eystur­oy with a pop­u­la­tion of around 980. Until a sub­sea tun­nel opened in 2020, it took over an hour to get from Toftir to the cap­i­tal – accen­tu­at­ing how lim­it­ed infra­struc­ture has meant iso­la­tion even with­in the country’s small geo­graph­ic area. What’s sad is that [change] goes the right way but there’s always a reac­tion out in the towns,” Tausen con­tin­ues. I moved here as I want­ed more cul­ture. Where I grew up there was reli­gion and sports. I real­ly want­ed to attend con­certs and I was inter­est­ed in poet­ry, but there was noth­ing there. Here, I can expe­ri­ence more.”

Top to bottom: Marianna Winter. Skrapt Festival. La Leif. Photos: Gwenaël Akira Helmsdal Carre.

Ini­tial­ly Tausen didn’t find many poet­ry read­ings, so she took things into her own hands and start­ed putting on events where peo­ple could read their work or sim­ply come to lis­ten. Our inter­view takes place after a read­ing from her debut poet­ry book, Skál, which touch­es on faith, reclaim­ing fem­i­nine sex­u­al­i­ty from the male gaze and per­son­al growth. It was impor­tant to me there were authors or poets that had released books – but also young peo­ple that just love it, so every­one can share,” she says. This act of plat­form­ing Faroese voic­es also extends to her job at Tutl, a record shop in Tór­shavn with a label of the same name act­ing as the lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive and dis­trib­u­tor of Faaroese music worldwide.

Estab­lished in 1977 by Dan­ish com­pos­er, musi­cian, record exec­u­tive and Faroe Islands res­i­dent Kris­t­ian Blak, Tutl’s remit is as broad. Basi­cal­ly: any­one from the islands who wants to put music out. Its back cat­a­logue is a gold­mine of work by ama­teurs and renowned names like Eivør Páls­dót­tir. When I walked [into the shop] I saw this wall of Faroese music – a whole wall! And I didn’t know any of it,” Tausen remem­bers. “ I was 20-years-old. I’d been liv­ing in a bub­ble of the town and church, so I only knew psalms and The Bible. I spent the next year explor­ing my own country’s music, then start­ed mak­ing my own.”

Tausen writes and sings in Faroese – a trend among many young artists that’s as much about accu­rate expres­sion as it is nation­hood. The islands gained auton­o­my but not inde­pen­dence from Den­mark in 1948, and the rela­tion­ship is com­plex. Copen­hagen runs the courts and sub­sidis­es var­i­ous sec­tors, includ­ing music. In 2019, the Faroe Music Export (FMX) office was found­ed to increase glob­al vis­i­bil­i­ty for artists through secur­ing inter­na­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, from fes­ti­vals to stu­dio part­ners to press agen­cies.

FMX Head Glenn Larsen relo­cat­ed to Tór­shavn from Nor­way mid-pan­dem­ic. When we meet for a day out explor­ing breath­tak­ing Faroese land­scapes, he mod­est­ly half-jokes the job was a case of right time and place – him being an artist man­ag­er with long­stand­ing expe­ri­ence in a place where sea­soned indus­try pro­fes­sion­als are in short sup­ply. Even so, his desire to make the insti­tu­tion work is clear. For me, when you find some new music or see a new band, you want to show your friends,” Larsen tells me. I felt like I’d been hand­ed a whole coun­try to present to the rest of the music industry.”

“It’s a cliché that everyone on the Faroe Islands can do at least five jobs: work in a bank, as a fisherman and as a sound engineer. Musicians are the same. Techno producers playing in a jazz trio, or a covers band member in the symphony orchestra also making death metal.” Lasse Jæger / Supervisjón

This vibrant, exper­i­men­tal Faroese scene has also lured over­seas acts. Foot­work and ghost­ly garage pro­duc­er Lasse Jæger, aka Super­visjón, is a case in point. Fol­low­ing his set at Skrapt, where 140BPM drums thun­dered beneath chop­py sam­ples of sound­bites heard dur­ing his own mort­gage advice meet­ings, he recounts emi­grat­ing from Den­mark four years ago and dis­cov­er­ing a short­er path between get­ting an idea and mak­ing it hap­pen, and an even short­er one to some­one say­ing come and play this con­cert” com­pared to larg­er countries.

He also speaks of a strong col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­it that’s fun­da­men­tal to the scene. It’s a cliché that every­one on the Faroe Islands can do at least five jobs: work in a bank, as a fish­er­man and as a sound engi­neer,” Jæger laughs. Musi­cians are the same. Tech­no pro­duc­ers play­ing in a jazz trio, or a cov­ers band mem­ber in the sym­pho­ny orches­tra also mak­ing death metal.”

For­ward-fac­ing tech­no artist La Leif, hail­ing from South Lon­don, has had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence. Every­one helps each oth­er out,” she says after her solo per­for­mance at Skrapt. It feels real­ly refresh­ing, peo­ple look after you and I think are more invest­ed in what you’re actu­al­ly doing.” When we grab a beer she’s joined by Jens L Thom­sen – a go-to mix­er and engi­neer for many on the islands, and her part­ner in the Faroes-born ORKA elec­tron­ic music project. Both of them recount instances of this col­lec­tivist ide­ol­o­gy in action, from kit shared between music-mak­ing friends to shows booked with 24 hours notice by audi­ence members-turned-promoters.

Top to bottom: Skrapt Festival. Photos: Gwenaël Akira Helmsdal Carre.

Lat­er, we find Mar­i­an­na Win­ter low­er­ing her­self into a deep wood­en bath­tub of ice cold water at Skrapt’s Sun­day evening extreme chill ses­sion.” One of sev­er­al con­tem­po­rary Faroese artists to break over­seas, her stun­ning voice and uptem­po soul tracks cap­ti­vat­ed the fes­ti­val crowd two evenings ear­li­er. Dry­ing off before speak­ing, she paints a vivid pic­ture of how nation­al­i­ty and self-deter­mi­na­tion are inter­linked with culture.

It’s impor­tant for peo­ple to under­stand the Faroe Islands as our own coun­try. But in many aspects we’re still referred to as Den­mark, which is a huge prob­lem,” Win­ter says. Peo­ple are no longer mov­ing from the Faroe Islands because it’s become a cool place to live. It wasn’t a cou­ple of years ago. That’s why all the young peo­ple moved to Copen­hagen or Eng­land. So more are stay­ing and that’s cool, but we have to fig­ure out what we have to offer, and what this coun­try offers us. The Faroese music indus­try is still far behind the rest of the world, as we are in many fac­tors – like politics.

Look at gen­der equal­i­ty. Women don’t own the rights to their own bod­ies as we have very strict abor­tion laws, even though Den­mark changed theirs way back,” she con­tin­ues, cit­ing the ongo­ing influ­ence of Chris­tian­i­ty through­out day-to-day life in the Faroes, from high school to state leg­is­la­tion. A recent tourist guide puts 80% of the pop­u­la­tion as belong­ing to the nation­al church.

“I feel you have a lot of responsibility – not just to yourself, but to all the artists around you [...] It's weird, trying to teach each other something while you're still learning, but it probably makes learning easier. It's kind of been like that for Faroese artists: learning by doing.” Marianna Winter

The depic­tion of Faroese com­mu­ni­ties bound by reli­gious val­ues rein­forces assump­tions of cul­tur­al iso­la­tion, but it also frames the pas­sion with which so many talk about break­ing free from con­ven­tions and being heard on their own terms. It’s a reflec­tion of things mov­ing into a more out­ward-look­ing era in which nation­al iden­ti­ty still counts, though it may not look like it once did. Art, it seems, is at the fore­front of this change.

I think we’re see­ing a lot more indi­vid­u­al­i­ty in artists now. There are so many new musi­cians, and young musi­cians, in dif­fer­ent bands. Before it was often the same musi­cians play­ing in all the bands, giv­ing them all a sim­i­lar sound.” Win­ter observes, adding that it’s excit­ing to see writ­ing in Faroese become in’ again. See­ing music released in Faroese, but aim­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly, even though there are like 50,000 peo­ple who under­stand the lan­guage, is real­ly cool.”

All artists I speak to believe that the suc­cess of Faroese artists relies on co-oper­a­tion, which is some­thing Win­ter reit­er­ates as our inter­view comes to a close. I feel you have a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty – not just to your­self, but to all the artists around you.” she says. We’re all friends, we all col­lab­o­rate on dif­fer­ent projects, we’re all musi­cians in each oth­er’s bands – stuff like that. It’s weird, try­ing to teach each oth­er some­thing while you’re still learn­ing, but it prob­a­bly makes learn­ing eas­i­er. It’s kind of been like that for Faroese artists: learn­ing by doing.”

The need to share expe­ri­ence, knowl­edge and plat­forms isn’t just an ide­o­log­i­cal one across the Faroe Islands – it’s a prac­ti­cal neces­si­ty. It feels oblig­a­tory; com­pen­sa­tion for a notable absence of music indus­try infra­struc­ture and the sense of being phys­i­cal­ly removed from the world beyond a North Atlantic often shroud­ed in thick fog. Iron­i­cal­ly, it’s these lim­i­ta­tions that may well have cre­at­ed the per­fect con­di­tions for the envi­able scene today: a trove of tal­ent, void of cyn­i­cism, har­ness­ing the true spir­it of DIY.

Top to bottom: Skrapt Festival. Photos: Gwenaël Akira Helmsdal Carre.

All pho­tos by Gwenaël Aki­ra Helms­dal Carre.

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