Eivor: A Journey Through Music and Imagination

Faroese singer-songwriter Eivør describes her childhood as “peaceful.” She grew up in a small town of 500 people and let her wild imagination run wild as she absorbed old folks songs and then the music of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.

“I would listen to all kinds of music,” she says via Zoom from her home in the Faroe Islands. She performs at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at Globe Iron.

After winning a singing competition at age 13, she began singing at public events.

“Before that, I had sung privately at family events,” she says.

When she was 16, she had enough songs to make her first album and recorded it at that age. After meeting an Icelandic opera singer, she moved to Reykjavik in 2002 for vocal lessons. Collaborations with groups such as Danish Radio Big Band, a long-running big band, followed.

“There were not many possibilities back then for singing lessons in the Faroe Islands, and I wanted to be better at it,” Eivør says of her move to Iceland. “There was so much I wanted to do with my voice but didn’t know how to. I met this incredible woman Ólöf Kolbrún who came to give singing lessons and encouraged me. I stayed with her for the first year. That was one of those spontaneous lessons.”

Because of her distinctive voice, a number of film directors recruited her for soundtrack work on movies such as The Last Kingdom, God of War and God of War Ragnarök. Her new album, Tungl (“moon” in Faroese), represents another major step in her career. The record veers from shimmering synth pop (“And the Moon Cried”) to moody Goth rock (“Walls”). She recorded the album live with her full band in a house on the Faroe Islands.

“About three years ago, I started to write the songs,” she says. “I was in the middle of finishing another album called Enn. There were a few elements on that album that led me further me onto this album — some things that I was curious to explore more. It’s like that often for me. I decided to record here because I felt like it was going back to my roots. It was about going back to the beginning without being a repetition. [Recording] was a beautiful experience. It was very special and grounding. It felt really right for the themes, which are about home in a sense.

She says she adopted a “cinematic” mindset for many of the songs. Her experience making soundtracks contributed to her approach on the album.

“For the whole album, the more cinematic and spacious moods have inspired me,” she says. “I have been working quite a lot with cinematic music over the years, like for The Last Kingdom. It has inspired me and influenced the way I think my own songs as well. I like these moody, open spaces and soundscapes.”

With a catalog that stretches back some 20 years now, Eivør says it’s become challenging to create a setlist for her live shows.

“We started rehearsals last week, and I have the longest setlist,” Eivør says. “It’s so hard to choose songs, especially when you make new albums and have to pick which new ones get to join the list. I like to make a live show that it feels like a journey, and the songs complement each other.”