Here’s something a little dark from Fie Eike, a composer, songwriter and producer, who, intriguingly, is Danish and based in Copenhagen, but born to Norwegian parents.
She’s an artistic polymath, employing electronic elements and field recordings from nature in her work, the latter inspired by her childhood memories in the contrasting environments of Denmark and Norway.
She also takes photographs and makes other artwork, creating sound installations for art exhibitions.
After completing her Master’s Degree in law in Denmark, she moved to London where she formed a band, and after living there for a while, in 2019 she returned to Copenhagen and started working on writing and producing music for her solo project which has now reached fruition.
In this debut single, ‘The Nile’, she invites listeners to find the courage to welcome the darkness, both internal and external, rather than flee from it; to be curious about what lies within it instead of hiding behind the couch.
Face up to your fears is the mantra, a worthy cause and one that I remember the Norwegian singer Siv Jakobsen trying to do on some of the tracks on her ‘Gardening’ album last year with a mixed bag of results. On one of her videos, plodding along a country lane in the dead of night, she looked terrified.
There’s no such dithering where Fie is concerned, a lady you’d want alongside you when you encounter a zombie or a 10ft tall multi-limbed, three eyed alien exiting their (I can’t say his or her can I?) crashed flying saucer.
I won’t bandy around adjectives like ‘ethereal’ which are over-used and have become meaningless but ‘The Nile’ is distinctly dark and foreboding. It would suit a Ghost Train funfair ride or perhaps one of the sketches in the 1990s British TV noir comedy series The League of Gentlemen, which is doing the rounds again.
Fundamentally it’s a procedural piano piece with attached vocals, a suspense builder augmented by discrete strings but seriously enlivened by all sorts of echo-y harmonies and noises off, clicks and clacks, which might have come from a horror movie. Think the final scene of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ when FBI agent Clarice Starling squares up to serial killer Buffalo Bill in a pitch black room where she’s flapping around helplessly and he is wearing night-sight goggles. This is the music for it.
And there’s something mildly erotic about it too.
The ending is quite sublime as her voice drip, drip, drops a couple of octaves in a matter of seconds.
Indeed she is a delight vocally. I can’t quite place her, she’s a mélange of several top artists; a little of Kate Bush, a hint of Fiona Apple, a dash of Weyes Blood and a smidgeon of England’s finest mistress of the darkness, Polly Scattergood.
But critically, she’s Fie Eike.
I have a fieling (sorry, couldn’t resist that) we’ll be hearing much more of this lady.
Find her on:
Website: https://www.fieeike.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fieeike
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fieeikemusic
