Lau Nau “Nukkuu” Review

The Swedes like to joke that the Finns don’t have a language—just a mix of commonly understood grunts and gobbledygook. If you have heard Finnish before you might be inclined to agree—speaking it is sort of like getting into a broken bottle fight with your tongue. This is why Finnish songstress Lau Nau’s music is so surprising. She takes one of the most guttural lexicons in the world somehow bends it into overwhelmingly gorgeous, psych-folk music. I would say that it sounds like LSD-induced bliss, except that the natural purity of the music seems untainted by the presence of mood enhancing drugs in a way that many similar freak folkers have not attained.

Nau’s recent LP Nukkuu takes inspiration from her home deep in the Finnish countryside where she has chosen to isolate herself. In sessions that coincided with her son’s naps (Nukkuu is Finnish for sleep) Nau crafted compositions that embody a meeting of nature and music. Out of that commune comes a set of nine songs, each brimming with found sounds, mystical melodies, and ghostly vocal arrangements. The tunes themselves are blankets of distortion, strings, chimes and bells, all layered into complex scores that are impossible to really understand, yet fall gently and easily upon the ears.

The opening track, “Lue Kartala,” is a test of whether or not you are ready to take the plunge. Hardly even classifiable as music, the jumble of vocals and erhu(?) plucking is one of the strangest tracks on the record. Stick with it though and you are rewarded with “Painovoma, Valoa,” an East-Asia inspired string orchestration that soothes like a cool breeze. In addition to possibly having the most U’s in any song title I have seen, “Ruususuu” also has one of the most delicately understated melodies of the record. Employing toy piano, strings, and multi-layered mumblings, the track contains both a haunting dread as well as an airy lightness, the dichotomy enhancing rather than contradicting each other. While the DIY aesthetic of the album gets a little choppy at times (“Mooste” sounds a bit like it was never quite finished) overall the album ties together nicely.

Like any record, Nukkuu has a time and a place. These are not, for instance, the songs to break out for your next keg party (unless said kegger is happening in an enchanted forest and you have only invited Wiccans). Perhaps since Lau Nau created the tunes in the confines of solitude, they are best listened to in a similar fashion. There is a starkness to the music that lends itself to a walk in the woods, the empty plain, or even the open road. If you choose to listen alone though, just make sure it doesn’t get dark before “Jouhet.” Under the wrong circumstances, that song can downright freak your shit out.

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