Kristine Barrett

https://kristinebarrett.bandcamp.com

Kristine BarrettKristine Barrett is an artist, composer, and vocalist specializing in experimental traditional music and ritual song from Eastern Europe, the Republic of Georgia, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Ireland, and the Americas.Unvisited Tombs: Mödrar, released 17 April 20201. Norr - North2. Númarímur II3. Oviksfjällen4. Mina Mödrar5. Kluck, Kluck6. Lilltåa, Tåtilla7. Vispolska Spelad av Sigrid Ward8. Vem Kan Segla Förutan Vind9. Marsfjällen10. Bite, Dabilėli, Dabilio11. Idag som IgårFör min kära mormor, Florence Louise (Johnson) Renshaw, och mina vackra föräldrar: Suzanne (Renshaw) Barrett och Charold Barrett. Jag älskar er alla från djupet av mitt hjärta.Mödrar is a deeply personal exploration of the lives of my Swedish grandmothers. Composed and recorded in both northern Sweden and California, the album traces the landscapes and matrilineal family histories of the sub-arctic and arctic north; from Sweden and Norway to Iceland and the Baltics. “Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”( –George Eliot, Middlemarch)Inspired by the quote from George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Unvisited Tombs is a research and creative multi-media project looking at women’s ancestral narratives as revealed through traditional vocal arts, textile practices, and folklore.Mödrar constitutes the first in a series of albums exploring these themes. In May 2019, I traveled with my sister and parents to northern Minnesota to bury my grandmother’s cremated remains at the family farm in Proctor. The daughter of immigrants from northern Sweden, my grandmother, like her mother before her, was a rich repository of traditional Swedish songs. When she died on September 29th, 2018, so passed the last native Swedish/Jämsk speaker and keeper of family Swedish songs in our US relations. Though I’ve spent years studying and singing music from many traditions, it had never occurred to me to learn the music of my grandmothers. It was something that felt like would always be there, until suddenly it wasn’t. A few weeks after the funeral, I traveled onwards from Minnesota with my husband and parents to northern Sweden. Utilizing my great-grandmother’s journal of her return trip to Sweden in 1957 as a guide, we visited old family farms, gravesites, fäbodar, and county archives before settling in Saxnäs amongst lakes, bears, mountains, profound silence, and the ever-present sun—watching it set every night on the mountains and move along the horizon. Jag hittade hem. I felt the palpable presence of my grandmothers amongst the brutal and immensely beautiful landscapes around me. A profound sense of home, belonging, loss, exile, love and grief filled the endless days. This album is a small, humble culmination of these experiences, and a tribute to theirs.

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