Anna Murtola – La Tierra Blanca (Nordic Notes, 2023)
“La Tierra Blanca” (The White Land) presents the unique flamenco vision of Finnish singer Anna Murtola. She is one of the pioneers of Finnish flamenco singing. Murtola was born in Oulu, a city of 200,000 inhabitants located about 5,000 kilometers north of Andalusia (Spain), where flamenco originates.
Although she sings in Spanish (and Finnish as well) and uses flamenco guitar and rhythms played with cajón and what seems like palmas, she also skillfully incorporates natural sounds, Finnish kantele and efficacious sound effects, spoken word, and the lyrics are inspired by Scandinavian landscapes and the Nordic way of life.
Anna Murtola describes the process of creating the album: “I used to take impulses from Oulu and record them, that is, stories, feelings and memories of my life. The songs of the new album arose from returning to my roots, and at the same time from the stories of those who came before me.”
Guests Musical guests on the album include kantele virtuoso Maija Kauhanen, Joonas Widenius on guitar, and Robert “Robi” Svärd from Sweden, on the flamenco guitar.
On La Tierra Blanca, Anna Murtola also worked closely with Paavo Impiö, a sound design artist from Oulu who recorded a wide range of sounds (birds, water and more) from local environments and used them to create the mesmerizing soundscape that appears on “La Tierra Blanca.”
Things are not what they seem “Instead of the traditional clapping, for example, there are the sounds of birch twigs, the cracking of a branch, or the strange chimes of a church bell that are used in the music,” Murtola says.
Murtola clarifies that she will not copy Spanish flamenco singers. “To me flamenco is the language, but the lyrics and contents are my own,” she underlines. When writing the lyrics, she tried hard to come to terms with her personal experiences, but on the other hand, she also wanted to highlight the lives of people in the area, putting herself in their shoes.
Anna Murtola is a graduate of the global music program at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. “La Tierra Blanca” is her second solo album. She is the first flamenco singer to record an album in Finland.
Anna Murtola provides details about the themes and meanings of her songs:
Täällä tuulee aina (Spoken word)
The opening track of the album is a piece of poetry, spoken in Finnish. It says: “Here the wind always blows / Here where I was born / Lives a wind that strips me and leaves me in the cold / Here the cold wind blows / In my town of empty streets / Faces and forms / I don’t recognize anymore / What is left of me / When the wind strips me bare / Under all my layers / Who am I?”
In the fall of 2019, I was in my old hometown, Oulu, celebrating the 30th anniversary of flamenco in Oulu. I walked my familiar routes, every street corner was filled with memories of my life there. As I walked, I felt the familiar cold wind that every local knows well. The idea arose that no matter how you leave your roots, there is some kind of core self inside you, which is revealed when the wind blows away all the newer layers. The whole idea for the La Tierra Blanca album was born around this idea. It was born out of the need to return home and understand one’s roots and oneself.
Northwind Bulería (canción por bulería)
The song talks about going back to your roots and finding your true core. After the cold wind that strips you bare until there is only the core of you left. The theme melody of the song and the lyrics of the chorus were born in November 2021 in Oulu, at the little island of Hupisaari by small frozen streams. I sent the melody and lyric ideas to guitarist Robi Svärd in Sweden, and he composed the guitar parts for the song. Sound artist Paavo Impiö composed the wind that howls throughout the song.
Río Rojo (seguiriya)
In northern Finland, and especially in northern Ostrobothnia, there is a strong influence of a certain religious sect, according to which dancing and rhythmic music are sin. The sect has a strict rule against the use of contraceptives and the status of women is very limited; a woman’s role is to be a mother and a wife. The influence of this religion is quite strong in my home region.
When I was a child, I had friends from this sect, and they said how a sinner (for example, a person who watches TV) is thrown into a lake of fire. The idea for the song “Red River” was sparked by the dramatic, red winter lighting of a little river that runs through the center of Oulu, which reminded me of that scary “lake of fire”. For me, being sentenced to a stream of fire brought the idea of how limited women’s rights to her own opinions and body often are in fundamental religious communities. This song is a bold combination of bare flamenco singing and sound art and electronic sounds. Instead of traditional flamenco percussion, sound artist Paavo Impiö created the rhythmic patterns of the seguiriya rhythm with birch logs, the rustling of rusty metal and e.g. distorting the palmas hand claps to almost sound like dripping water.
Inundación de Primavera (bamberas)
The song “Spring flood” tells about the experience of being trapped inside your own life. When you feel that change is coming, but the fear of drowning in the unknown can prevent you from pursuing the kind of life you would like to live. But if you embrace the rains and floods of change instead of fearing them, the current can take you where you need to go. The song was composed in collaboration with guitarist Joonas Widenius.
Puentes Blancos (abandolao)
In my hometown there is a green park crossed by babbling little brooks and small white bridges (Puentes Blancos). When the war in Ukraine in 2022 started, I wanted to think of something that is light, beautiful and comforting in this world. It took me to the golden light of summer nights in my hometown and the comforting green shadows of Ainola Park, where I played as a child. In his guitar melodies, Robi Svärd managed to perfectly capture the bubbling and sparkling joy I was looking for. In Paavo Impiö’s soundscape, you can hear running water and the song of blackbirds. My late mother sometimes used to call me her blackbird and said that if I had a traditional “flamenco artist name” it should be Blackbird – La Mirla.
Isälle (Spoken word)
A poem for my father, who passed away in 2014.
De Azul Plomo (ballad)
I wrote this song “Lead Blue Eyes” for my father a few years after he died. He used to call me on my birthday and describe how it was freezing cold that January day and how the sun was glistening on the icy branches of the trees. This is also how I remember my birthdays as a child; on a shimmering, sparkling frosty day. My father was an artist and made his career in the theater as a scenographer. On some of our birthdays, he decorated our home in honor of the celebration, for example by hanging the ceiling full of pink silk flowers. It felt like an enchanted fairy tale world to me and my sister. Paavo Impiö’s crisp sound art and Robi Svärd’s beautifully wistful guitar melodies create a suitable background for my memories.
Nana / Tuutulaulu (Nana / Finnish lullaby)
In flamenco, the lullaby is called Nana. In this song, Spanish and Finnish lullaby traditions meet and merge into one. I composed the Spanish parts based on traditional nana melodies but the lyrics are my own. The Finnish lullaby texts in turn are old traditional texts that I found in Suomalainen kehtolaulu = the Finnish Lullaby publication (Kaustinen, Folk Music Institute 1994) with the valuable advice of folklore expert Amanda Kauranne. The song’s guitar melody is based on a guitar cycle composed by my partner Ahmed Ali Hussein, which made me think of snow falling slowly. The melody inspired me to compose a wistful, even melancholic lullaby, and like many old Finnish lullaby lyrics, this lullaby has darker tones, because it is sung to a dead child.
En Mi Mar (soleá)
The name of the flamenco style, soleá, comes from the word soledad which translates to loneliness. This song “On my sea” describes the feeling of sometimes feeling alone even in a relationship, but also a story on how behind that silence there can be a connection so strong that it carries you through storms. The song was co-composed with flamenco guitarist Juho Koskimies. Paavo Impiö’s sound art paints rainy landscapes with a gray sea in the background. Somewhere in the distance, a ship blows its fog horn.
Nunca Una Sola (sevillanas)
The first verse and chorus of this song were originally written by my mother whom I lost in 2020. My mother was a talented writer and I inherited my love of poetry and writing from her. My mother left behind the kind of wisdom that comes with love, understanding and openness. From seeing that there are more shades in life than just black and white. In the lyrics of the other three verses of the song, I wanted to honor this legacy and my mother’s philosophy of life. The name of the song in English is “Never Just One”. The guitar melodies were composed by Robi Svärd.
Juoksee kolme jokea (Spoken word) and Ańńikin laulu (Featuring Maija Kauhanen)
A poem in Finnish, based on the text that inspired me to make tracks 11 and 12. “Three rivers run / From the tears of one wife / Three birch trees grew on the banks of three rivers / Three cuckoos sang / on the branches of three birch trees / One sang the sound of love One sang the sound of tenderness / Of tenderness unknown / The third sang the sound of mercy / To a child without mercy / To one that knew no mercy”.
During the artistic process of La Tierra Blanca album, I had a strong need to search for my roots in many different ways. In my search, I found out that my father’s father’s mother and father came to Finland from Repola, Karelia, which is now part of Russia.
I found that much of what nowadays is considered to be Finnish folklore, has been gathered from these regions. I wanted to know what kind of stories and songs the people there, in the area of my ancestors, told and sang. I found an old Karelian runosong text “Ańńikin laulu” (The song of Ańńikki) in The Ancient Songs of the Finnish People database (SKVR II:39). The text was recorded in Repola, Karelia in 1917 by Ilmari Manninen.
The young maiden, Ańńikki goes alone in the woods and meets a man who tries to take her by force. Shocked, Ańńikki returns home weeping and telling her family what happened. The family tells her she should be married to the man. Ańńikki goes into a shed, finds a piece of rope and hangs herself. Her mother then goes to search for her and finds her daughter dead. She starts crying, and from the mother’s tears grow three rivers.
On the banks of the three rivers, grow three birch trees. And on the branches of them, sing three cuckoos. The cuckoos sing a sad message to the hung maiden. I was deeply touched and shocked of the tragic story of Ańńikki. With the last two tracks on the album, I wanted to tell her story in my own way and invited the kantele artist Maija Kauhanen to collaborate with me.
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More about Anna Murtola
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.