Eskimo folk, anyone? Well, maybe you prefer Arctic pop. Or Inuk indie…

The truth is Nive Nielsen’s music is hard to pigeonhole. And that, quite literally in this case, goes with the territory. Nive is a ukulele wielding Inuit artist hailing from Greenland and one of the first in her country to try and do things the indie way. That is no mean feat, since her hometown, the capital city of Nuuk, does not boast any record stores, let alone underground ethics. It is so remote there aren’t even any roads connecting the towns. Go figure.

Nive never dreamed of becoming a singer songwriter or a recording artist. It just happened. Well, just about. At some point she did some acting in Hollywood, where she shared a few scenes with Colin Farrell. Pretty cool, huh? But I guess you could say everything is kind of cool in Greenland. Nive Nielsen is not the seal hunting type, mind. In fact she graduated as a visual anthropologist from the University of London and, among other things, directed a documentary about traditional Greenlandic kayaks.

The songs, usually adorned with folk or alt. country colorings, tend to come to her intuitively. They may be happy or scary, somewhat odd or downright silly, but they are always imaginative and just a tad different from anybody else’s. This makes her stand out in a world already replete with acoustic guitar strumming girl singers. As a songwriter, more often than not Nive Nielsen has her tongue stuck firmly in her cheek. Her musical vignettes are immersed with a quirky sense of humor and a positive life view.

Nive’s multi-instrumentalist boyfriend Jan De Vroede helped her to knock the tunes into shape and to flesh out the arrangements during the harsh Greenlandic winter of 2008. While snowstorms were raging around their wooden house, they finished an impressive bunch of songs. The fifteen best ones would eventually end up on their self released debut album ‘Nive Sings!’. In order to cut the songs, Nive and Jan started travelling all over the world and called upon an impressive array of musician friends. The album was partly recorded and produced in Bristol (UK) by the great John Parish, who had worked with PJ Harvey. In ‘Pirate Song’ and ‘Done & Gone’ you can hear Nive Nielsen duetting with Howe Gelb of desert rock band Giant Sand. Among the North-American musicians taking part in the studio sessions were reed player Ralph Carney (Tom Waits), banjo man Matt Bauer (Alela Diane), the drummers Eric Craven (A Silver Mount Zion) and Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), saw player Lisa Gamble (HRSTA), bass and guitar player Giselle Webber (Hot Springs) and many more.

Nive Nielsen cites Americana artists, mountain balladeers, blues musicians and old dusty 78’s as her key influences. But what makes ‘Nive Sings!’ such an unforgettable listening experience are of course the songs about ghosts, naughty reindeer, a boyfriend with a caffeine addiction or killing bugs with a vacuum cleaner