We start off talking a bit about their show at Tuska on the Tuska KVLT stage later that day, where both express to be quite happy to be playing in more of a club setting on an inside stage, which will make it a lot easier for them to manage their instruments and all the decorations they usually put on stage.

Talking about their performances, they don’t see them as purely a show, but neither as a ritual. Rather a bit of both where they just enjoy music and playing, and when they play they want to honor their cultural history and ancestors. There are ritualistic looking things in there, but for instance compared to Heilung it’s much less of a full-on ritual. Even before they get on stage they don’t really have any specific rituals to get into the right mindset, most of the time because they’re in a hurry, but afterwards some of them might have their own thing backstage afterwards.

When touching on how they are trying to channel their ancestors and their country’s folklore and pagan history, because in Finland there used to be not a lot of attention to that, they had to get in touch with that all on their own. For Henri it was through some of the Norwegian black metal stuff that he listened to as a teenager that he got in touch with folk and pagan stuff. And there is of course the Kalevala and then Amorphis who dedicated quite a few albums and songs to that Finnish epic. Luckily nowadays there are more and more people and organisations who are trying to preserve the Finnish folklore through music and events like Pakanafestarit (Pagan fest), but also all across the globe you can see people being proud of their own roots.

Noiduin is also known to build a lot of their traditional instruments themselves, which has become somewhat of a way to connect with their instruments for Jemina, where she gets a really intense feeling and love towards the instrument she built. And the way they build their instruments is usually for a purpose, where it’s there for a certain sound they need in their music. It makes it quite tricky though to get those traditional instruments aligned with a modern production, it’s basically always a pain in the ass. But totally worth it, because you can’t recreate the same feeling with modern instruments. Even though being in Finland makes it even more tricky since moisture and cold weather influences the tuning a lot, or even makes their horn instruments to not work at all.

A couple of months ago, they released their album ‘Lovi‘, which refers to a sort of place where a shaman goes when they go into a trance, traveling to the underworld or to a higher plane. It’s like somewhat of a crack or opening in reality that gives a shaman access to that other place or realm they seek out. We also talk about some pieces of nature that are really inspiring to them, even though they find those all over Finland because there is something special about Finnish nature, and how Finland doesn’t really seem to care all too much about preserving historical sites and artifacts.

Lastly, they hope that when someone sees them for the first time live that they can find something inside themselves, something deeper, something that connects and resonates with their roots, even if they’re not Finnish.

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