Track By Track: Rebekka Karijord on Mother Tongue
This week sees the release of Mother Tongue, the third studio album from Rebekka Karijord
Mother Tongue was written - partially - following the traumatic arrival, three months early, of the Stockholm-based Norwegian's first baby and there's certainly a darkness at play on what's a devastatingly beautiful work.
Below, Karijord talks us through her new album, which you can also stream in full.
Morula
"It is an epic, sci-fi like inner tale about cell division and a loss of control. Morula (means mulberry in latin) is a multi divided, sticky state the fertilized female egg is in only a brief period, to be able to attach to the uterus wall. I also like the idea of a singular unit dividing into several parts of itself, when meeting it´s antagonist. It could even be a metaphor for creativity. "
Waimanalo
"On this one, I wanted the prepared piano to sound like tides over a coral reef. Waimanalo is a very magical place in Oahu, Hawaii. Tall, dramatic mountains framing a long white beach with intent under currents, guarded by tall, tropical pine trees. there is a hawaiian myth saying old warrior ghosts or guardians walk there during the night. The song is like a short story, describing a few seconds in a couple´s life. The woman is on the beach, the man in the water. From far away she observes him as he disappears under the waves, and in a moment that seems to last forever, she realizes she isn’t sure whether he will surface or not. And in the same second she realizes there is no way she can save him; He has to save himself. "
I Will Follow You Into the Wild
"This is a chant I recorded in Hawaii, with an amazing woman called Kekuhi Keali’ikanaka’oleohaililani, who carries a long thread of ancient, Hawaiian chanting knowledge. The Hawaiian chants are called Olí and often speaks about the humans relation to nature. This one is a description of returning to a beloved place and realizing something is changed. It is about letting go of control, of daring to adapt, of 'following into the wild'. The chant and Kekuhi´s androgynous voice touched me immensely, and it sort of became a headline for thematic of this record."
The Orbit
"A euphoric, manic love song. An 'ok, let´s do this!' . An irreversible train starting. A description of a symbiosis, to components circling around each other in a mutual solar system."
Your Name
"This song is describing the moment my daughter came way too early to this world. Loosing control of my body, being replaced by machines. Hospitals corridors and intense instinct. Being like an animal. Growing tall of love and the will to save and survive. "
Six Careful Hands
"This song is a wondering, new born, fragile heartsigh. It was first hummed in the countless hours I was sitting there in the hospital with my daughter on my chest, attached to tubes and cables and machines."
Home
"This is the next chapter from 'Six Careful Hands', and a mirror song to 'Waimanalo'. This time the waves in the prepared piano is sounding more like a breath, like heartbeats. It is playing with the counterpoint between something metric, mechanical, incontrollable - and something organic, human, wavy. The human body and machines replacing it. I wanted it to sound baroque and electronic at the same time. It is describing an interplay between two characters again, symbiotic and co-dependent, both taking, giving, and lifesaving."
Stones
"About emotional inheritance. About carrying around a burden you have not chosen. About adult children raising children that has to become adult way too soon. About breaking that circle."
Statistics
"A social-realism lovesong. I wanted to write something very pragmatic and romantic at the same time. An ode to everyday life with someone you love."
Mother Tongue
"This is a track about instinct and belonging. Mother tongue not as in a nationality, a language, but more as a metaphor for a human's true voice and expression. "
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