I was fortunate to have the opportunity to interview one of the most endearing singer / songwriters around on a cold October morning. Lena Andressen is a Canadian - Faroese musician with four studio albums out, including her latest, "Letters From The Faroes." The recently dropped album has been selected as the album of the year in The Faroe islands, and Lena is currently on tour promoting it. "Letters from The Faroes" is as inventive and as intimate an album as you'll ever find and can be purchased at Lena's website:
http://www.lenamusic.com/
Here's most of my brief morning interview with lena:
Your latest album
letters From The Faroes, which was released in Denmark yesterday am I
right ? It seems like a really interesting album, could you tell us a
bit about it ? What's the inspiration behind it ?
Yes it came out yesterday and it's
inspired by the feeling of being uprooted, the constant longing for
elsewhere that I sometimes tend to feel. I've grown up in Cananda and
on The Faroe islands so i've always tended to long for one thing or
another and this sense of longing, of uprootedness is reflected in
Letters From The Faroes.
The cover design
is pretty unique too., as a letter with stamps and love hearts on it
Was this your own idea ?
Well it was mine and Niclas, the guy I
write most of my stuff with. The idea was to bring back a bit of
feeling as far as the art of letters being something that is dying or
certainly something that is less common. The CD case feels and looks
like a letter, which brings back the idea of feeling being involved
in music. Letters from the Faroes, the album title refers to the
songs on the CD, which for me are like different letters that capture
the state of mind that i'm in at the time I write them.
You're playing
quite a few gigs around Denmark to promote the album over the next
few weeks. What is like to play here ?
It's always nice to play in Denmark. I
think my music is appreciated here. Of course it's different from one
venue to another. Some places are really loud, really noisy whilst
others can be quiet and cosy and everyone listens to you. Generally
it's always a pleasure to play here.
Most Danes don't
know much about the Faroe Islands, For me they're this picturesque
magical place- that's the image that springs to my mind when I think
of them. What are the islands actually like ?
(smiling) It's sad that many Danes
don't know much about them- they are a part of Denmark too. Well The
Faroes are 18 small islands in the middle of the Atlantic. The
weather can be pretty bad - there's a lot of wind and sometimes it
feels like there are four seasons in one day, so if you're into
weather extremes this is the place to be. There are actually a lot of
people from the Faroe islands who play music, and I think this has to
do with the fact that they're quite an isolated place, so we're
always looking to express ourselves somehow.
Do you also sing
in Faroese ?
I haven't recorded any songs in
Faroese, no and this is mainly because English is my native language
which makes it a lot easier for me in the songwriting process. I
speak and write Faroese but for my music it's much easier to do
things in English.
What inspires you
in the process of writing your music ?
When I write songs I try to convey a
state of mind that i'm in at the time so it's very spontaneous.
Sometimes I feel happy, or sad, or if I feel like dying or whatever
emotion it is that's going through me. Sunsets and sunrises and other
natural phenomena are all background inspirations but not part of the
main process as such. My songs are sometimes a way for me to
overcome certain emotions, they have a bit of a therapeutic effect
whilst at the same time telling some story or other.
What music do you
listen to when you're not playing your own songs ?
Well anything
really. I'm really inspired by songs that trigger an emotion in me,
songs that make me do something or want to do something. Of course
these songs can be anything really, The Beatles, you name it.
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