NNF 2017

Maarja Nuut

Norwich Theatre Playhouse

16/05/17

According to her own website, Maarja Nuut is "a fiddler and singer from Northern Estonia" whose "music combines traditional dance tunes, songs and stories with live electronics to create an intricate layered soundscape in a space where minimalism and experimental music meet the village musical traditions of pre-war Europe". And that's not the half of it...

Tonight's stage set is an exercise in minimalism. The stage is bare but for a mic stand, a peddle board and a wooden square laid flat, whose purpose only become clear later on. The lighting is similarly sparse. A spotlight shines from each of the wings, with a few white and red lights overhead and a backdrop projection of misty woodland scenes. With music and storytelling this good, nothing else is necessary.

Between and even during the songs, Nuut is a captivating raconteur, telling stories and explaining the origins and meanings of her songs. There's a creation myth along with tales of fratricide, a man who disturbs demons dancing a polka, a French ex-boyfriend making a violin and more.

As Nuut sings and plays, she loops herself until there could be a choir and a veritable orchestra of fiddlers on stage. The singing takes in vocal clicks, whooshes of breath and wordless ululations. Oh, and that wooden square? That is mic'd up and Maarja loops the sounds of her own tap-meets-ballet-meets-waltz dancing whilst playing her fiddle.

By her own admission, Maarja is a music nerd, obsessed with trad, roots and archive recordings. So, unsurprisingly, her music is rooted in the traditional music of Estonia but there's more to it than that, with suggestions - for this listener at least - of Western European classical, gypsy, Russian romance songs and klezmer. The looping gives a contemporary edge and, in feel - if not necessarily in style - there are hints of the questing, exploratory styles of Bjork and the Montreal collective built around Esmerine, Silver Mt Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. 

Tonight's set had moments of that were sublime and beautiful. Without coming over all hyperbolic, at times this was simply astonishing, quite, quite astonishing.