Sara Ajnnak and the Ciderhouse Rebellion: Landscapes of the Spirit, Parts 1-4 review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

(Self-released)
The Ume Sámi vocalist and British folk duo complete their four-part cycle with a dark, dazzling finale that blends ancient song with fearless improvisation

Just released at a fittingly ghoulish time of year is the final part of this collaboration between Ume Sámi vocalist Sara Ajnnak and British folk-improv duo the Ciderhouse Rebellion. The artists’ joint Landscapes of the Spirit project, delivered in four releases over 2025, has cycled through life from Geärkakame (Cradle) to Gárránis (Raven), Hálluo (Desire) to Jábmieájmmuo (Shadows Between Worlds), meshing the dramatic folk improvisations of fiddler Adam Summerhayes and accordionist Murray Grainger with a singer whose Arctic language is one of the most threatened in the world.

Ajnnak has a commanding grasp of one of Sámi culture’s oldest vocal art forms, the joik, which expresses musical portraits of people, places and creatures through short lyrics, or with lyric-free sounds. On Jábmieájmmuo’s title track, her vocals whip between stuttering high notes, low ululations and panting breaths that build to heavy-metal-worthy growls, supported by wheezy drones and wriggling slips of fiddle melody. Ajnnak is representing the nåejtie here, a central figure in Sámi society who conversed between worlds, at a time when industry and the climate crisis threaten her culture’s existence for ever. A baby’s gurgle cuts in at one point, like a haunting.