Future Spectres: Islaja

Summoning summer’s in-spirations, czirp czirp is very excited to have Finnish artist Merja Kokkonen aka ISLAJA back in Vienna. After a short baby-pause, she continues the exploration of new adventures in sound and musics by challenging expectations in female role models in the arts. As formative protagonist of the Millennial’s freak folk movement, ISLAJA tackles biases engrained in such genre terminologies as ‘world music’ or ‘ethno pop’. Her style manages to evade inferences, inviting us into a surreal synthesis of mythical tales, nature themes and musical styles that often touch the fundamentally human.