Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, eat your heart out. Only in NMC do you get reviews of songs in Greenlandic.
We encounter numerous difficult languages here at NMC – Icelandic, Faroese and Finnish for example – but nothing compares to Greenlandic.
That isn’t only my opinion, it is also that of Per Bloch, who liked it so much he moved there to the Danish territory in 2019 and began to learn it, despite having been warned not to bother on account of how hard it is.
Greenland has also left its very own mark on his art. As a tribute to the territory, in 2022 he released the spoken word album ‘Panneq’ (’Stag’ in English), which was recorded with Greenlandic artists such as Gerth Lyberth and Andachan.
Per was here a month or so ago with a duet featuring the Greek/Danish singer Danai Nielsen. This time he releases the aptly titled single ‘Oqaatsit angakkuakkat’ (‘Magical words’) in collaboration with the Greenlandic musician Gustav Lynge Petrussen, part of the band Inuk and known under the stage name Tûtu. (Is he any relation to Simon Lynge? Or is Lynge the equivalent of Smith? Just wondering).
He says the song is his personal way of saying thank you to Greenland, having lived there for two and a half years, while opining that Greenlandic is a really beautiful language that deserves to reach many more people than the 56,000 that speak it.
Strangely enough that was the population size when I went there in 1993. Probably more musk oxen than people. Perhaps it just gets too damn cold for much hanky panky.
Anyway, about the song. Best way I can describe it is as a happy sing-a-long pop ballad with a heartbeat bass line and a catchy chorus. Then suddenly, completely incongruously and out of nowhere, it explodes into the grandest fuzzy reverbed guitar shred Greenland has probably ever heard before shrinking back into the ballad again as if it had never existed.
The lyrics are a simple statement of desire to be reunited again with the country rather than with any single individual in it.
I won’t labour you with the actual words in Greenlandic – it looks like someone’s fingers got caught in a typewriter’s keys (Jeez – how can anyone learn that?) – but the English ones are reproduced below.
Next up for the multilingual Per is a song in Faroese with Lea Kampmann, who has previously appeared in NMC, coming up in August.
The cover photo was taken by the Greenlandic artist Sika W. Filemonsen.
Lyrics:
Words that I lack
My hopes are
That you will have room for me
Where I can calm down
Can you promise me again
Can you promise me again
That it is the two of us that’s will be together
Words that I miss
As I used to hear
You want it all from me
Words that are enchanted
Can you promise me again
Can you promise me again
That it is the two of us that will be together
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bloch.per
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perbloch/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/perbloch
