(headline image: Hildá Länsman – photo by Meeri Koutaniemi)
Hildá Länsman was born in 1993 in Utsjoki, Finland. Utsjoki is Finland’s northernmost corner, where the tundra meets endless sky. Hildá’s voice carries both the ancient and modernity. A joik-singer and songwriter, she has built a career on bridging centuries, honoring the Sámi tradition of joik while daring to thread it into the fabric of contemporary world music. Her artistic career is shaped by a life steeped in reindeer husbandry, duodji handicraft, and the inherited pulse of luohti, the joik form that speaks not about but as the subject it evokes.
At the Sibelius Academy, through the Global Music program, she refined her musical gift with academic rigor, yet her sound never lost its raw frontier spirit. Onstage, her voice is nothing less than elemental: ethereal one moment, growling the next, capable of cutting through silence like wind over ice or swelling into warmth like firelight in winter. It is this unclassifiable range that has made her a singular ambassador of Sámi culture and an artist impossible to ignore.
Länsman is not content to remain solitary. She leads and collaborates with multiple acclaimed ensembles, each project revealing a different facet of her musical interests. With Solju, she and her mother, Ulla Pirttijärvi, crafted Ođđa Áigodat (New Times), a debut that won the Indigenous Music Award for Best International Indigenous Release in 2019. Their follow-up, Uvjamuohta (Powder Snow), was named International Indigenous Recording of the Year in 2023 at the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards in Canada. Beyond accolades, Solju has become a touchstone for how Sámi music can evolve without dilution, balancing ancestral weight with modern fire.
Her duo VILDÁ, with accordionist Viivi Maria Saarenkylä, pushes into wild territory, where joik collides with improvisation, folk, and jazz. Their debut Vildaluodda – Wildprint landed on Songlines Magazine’s Best Albums of 2019 list, a rare feat for a first release. In 2021, they earned the MME Talent Award for contemporary European music from the European Commission.
With Gájanas, she channels Sámi heritage through heavier currents. Their debut album, released symbolically on Sámi National Day in 2021, not only topped Worldbeat Canada charts but also claimed the award for International Indigenous Artist-Group-Recording of the Year. The band’s single “Diamántadulvvit” became a rallying cry, shimmering like the aurora over northern skies.
Since 2017, Länsman has also forged a powerful alliance with sound designer and producer Tuomas Norvio. Together, they explore the friction and harmony between ancestral voice and dense electronica. Norvio bends rhythm and resonance into something sculptural, while Länsman’s joik adds a breath of the eternal.
Discography:
Ima hutkosat, with Niillas Holmberg (2011)
Ođđa Áigodat, with Solju (Bafe’s Factory, 2018)
Vildaluodda, with VILDÁ (Bafe’s Factory, 2019)
Ođđa Áigodat (Remixed), with Solju (Bafe’s Factory, 2020)
Čihkkojuvvon, with Gájanas (Bafe’s Factory, 2021)
Uvjamuohta, with Solju (Bafe’s Factory, 2022)
Dajan, with Tuomas Norvio (Fierran, 2025)
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.