Adjágas are a young Sami duo who consist of Sara Mariella Gaup (23) and Lawra Somby (26). Sara, from Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, has been singing since she was a child, performing on stage since the age of 12. Lawra learnt his musical skills from his father Ánde. Despite growing up in Oslo city centre, he comes from a proud Sami family, and to this day travels almost perpetually, within and outside Norway. The two deeply charismatic ‘yoikers’ work with a revolving core of musicians and producers, and their live show sheds a different light on their music and its tradition.
The duo’s album, released on Ever, was praised in London’s number one morning paper, Metro, and labelled ‘Album of the Week’: “It’s a fluid form but it’s the precise, deeply evocative beauty of the yoik that allows the listener to conjure up any image they may have of what this beautiful music means. And it is beautiful: a soothing guitar tumbles over brushed drums in Guorus Fatnasat and Mun Ja Mun’s spiritual incantation is gently uplifting, yet Dolgematki’s bar-room stomp reveals more off-kilter drinking-song side to Adjágas. Folky in feel without ever being stifled by traditions, this is magical, memorable and timeless debut.”
Just as positive is Time Out magazine and awards the album five out of six stars: “Such is the intensity on this record you wouldn’t believe Adjágas has only two members. (…) Part of this tradition is yoik singing – making sounds rather than words – and this debut is an enchanting snapshot of another world that will keep you going back for more.”
Adjágas is the Sami word for the mental state between waking and sleeping. Samiland, also known as Sápmi, is the territory at the very northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, spreading into Russia. The Sami tribes, numbering about 60,000 now, follow a nomadic existence, herding their reindeer all year from the central lands in the winter to the coasts in summer and back again.
It is undoubtedly their Sami roots that define Adjágas as being so different. Their music is based around the concept of the ‘yoik’, a traditional musical form which describes something not with its words but its sounds. “You can start a ‘yoik’ where you like, you can end it where you like,” the duo explain. “Its elements remain structured, but it’s fluid at the same time. A ‘yoik’ is like liquid in a bottle – you can shake it up, but the contents remain the same. And the content of the ‘yoik’ deliberately has many meanings, in order to spare the feelings of the subject. It is also possible to be the subject of more than one ‘yoik’: how it sounds depends upon the perspective of the person who is delivering it. More importantly, a ‘yoik’ is not written. It comes to a person. Some ‘yoikers’ sleep with their mobile phone by their bed at all times so that when a ‘yoik’ comes to them in their dreams they are able to record it the moment they wake. A ‘yoik’ that is deliberately written has no soul, and a ‘yoiker’ knows this.”
Adjágas describe their music as “gentle, peaceful, hypnotic, quietly passionate, dreamlike, deeply spiritual and utterly engrossing – but at the same time, strangely alien. Lyrics are unrecognisable, startling vocals delivered in a style that veers between whispered but crystal clear sweetness, unbridled emotion and all points in between, sometimes hitting notes that may previously have never existed.”
“Don’t tag this as simply ‘world music’, though, unless you already label the likes of Sigur Ros or Cocteau Twins as such,” they say. Adjágas will of course bring the concept of Sami culture to many people for the first time, but the duo emphasise that they will, first and foremost, bring “a music of immediate, immaculate, intimate beauty to people, one that crosses all cultural boundaries.”