Eivør Pálsdóttir

by Chris Nickson One accusation no one can level against Eivør Pálsadóttir is that she's stayed in a rut. In fact, there's been such a variety to her music that it's impossible to predict her next move. Born in 1983 in the capital of the Faroe Islands (which belong to Denmark), she showed a precocious vocal talent, moving to Reykjavik in Iceland to study opera and classical music. However, by that time she'd already made her eponymous 2000 debut, working with other Faroese musicians on an adventurous set. Her second album, Krákan, arrived in 2003, singing in a mix of Icelandic and Faroese, and winning two categories in the Icelandic Music Awards. Her third disc took her in a completely different direction. Working with Canadian guitarist and singer Bill Bourne, she made a very rootsy, largely acoustic record, with some songs in English. Perhaps surprisingly -- after all, she'd shown no inclination in that direction before -- it worked remarkably well, and brought an offer to do something utterly different, to make a CD with the Danish Radio Big Band, for which she composed some of the material. Trøllabundin, the result of the collaboration, appeared in 2005, after which Pálsadóttir relocated to Copenhagen. She has also worked with others, as well as fostering her solo career, recording rock with Clickhaze and some quite adventurous jazz with the Faroese ensemble Yggdrasil led by Kristian Blak. In 2007 Pálsadóttir began recording a new album to be produced by Irish music legend Dónal Lunny.