Finland’s Lau Nau promises a kind of secular vespers

[rug]

by Alexander Varty on May 18th, 2016 at 4:08 PM

Although Lau Nau is relatively unknown in North America, one look at the website belonging to the woman otherwise known as Laura Naukkarinen proves that she’s been busy at home. Playing with noisy rock bands, improvising with like-minded experimentalists, writing beautifully fragile songs, and crafting soundtracks for award-winning films occupy her time. Her creative practice is so diverse that it seems only natural to ask just which Lau Nau we’ll get when she makes a rare Vancouver appearance next week.

“I’m playing my songs on the guitar, with some toys and small sound objects,” Naukkarinen answers in lightly accented English, by way of a glitchy Skype connection from her home on a Finnish island somewhere west of Helsinki.

“They’re really quiet songs,” she stresses. “It’s not like a big rock-club thing; it’s more like sitting down, listening. If it was religious, it would be like a vespers, you know. But it’s not!”

What kind of subjects will she sing about in this small, secular ceremony?

http://www.straight.com/music/700131/finlands-lau-nau-promises-kind-secular-vespers

[struggle4progress]

1. That's a nice piece of music

But I don't think I could ever regard a song named Nosferatu as somehow equivalent to vespers

The 1922 film is a classic, of course. But it's hard now not to see it as an image of Germany between the great killing fields of the two wars

[rug]

2. It's those long nights in Finland.

I couldn't find any of her new albm on youtube.