Johan Sara Jr., Stein Inge Brækhus, Erik Håkon Halvorsen, Serdar Kastelli - Mearraspeajal (2023) [Hi-Res]

Johan Sara Jr.

Johan Sara Jr. is an innovative performer in one of Europe’s oldest song traditions, Sami music from the Arctic, the joik. His unique combination of joik and contemporary elements provides a hypnotic and meditative sound, which has been praised both at home and abroad. His music has confirmed his position as a vital, fresh and genre free innovator.

Johan Sara Jr. was born in Alta and grew up with reindeer herders on the vast snow-covered tundra in the arctic north. He is now settled in the Sami town of Maze. He was born into a culture where nature and the natural was everywhere, a culture where the joik had a central position and had a mother who had a strong interest in maintaining this tradition. To Johan Sara joik is therefore so much more than an artistic expression; it is his history and legacy.

The Sami traditional songs, the joik, took the sounds of nature; the wind, the tundra and the sounds of the animals, and let the Sami shaman, the noaidi, express it as music. It is said about the joik that it has no beginning and no end; it started with the sounds of nature and is in an eternal loop that is ever evolving. Joik is a song tradition involving few words which gives the listeners the opportunity of free associations and spiritual experiences.

Johan Sara Jr. has through his own unique expression continued a thousand year old tradition by adapting the joik to his reality and his contemporary time. Johan Sara Jr. connects the modern to the natural, the sound image of the future with the music of the past and will in this way give his small contribution to make mankind recover the original, the natural and the human. «Everything goes so fast. We no longer have the time to find peace. We have moved so far from the natural that it affects our health, both personal and in relation to how we treat our nature. We need to find peace. In ourselves and with ourselves», says Johan Sara Jr.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Johan Sara Jr., Stein Inge Brækhus, Erik Håkon Halvorsen, Serdar Kastelli - Mearraspeajal (20:57)
1.02 - Johan Sara Jr., Stein Inge Brækhus, Erik Håkon Halvorsen, Serdar Kastelli - Vuostebárut (11:08)
1.03 - Johan Sara Jr., Stein Inge Brækhus, Erik Håkon Halvorsen, Serdar Kastelli - Čuorvut máttuide (8:11)