""I always had the voice and now I am a singer"
Teitur; (tie’tor) is a singular name for a singular man. Hailing from the Faroe Islands Teitur is an artist whose songs remind you what music can do for the soul. Teitur first came to the attention of the world with the release of his 2003 debut album Poetry & Aeroplanes, which won him rave reviews.
"The airy gossamer arrangements (and) dreamy vocals evoke the reveries of a romantic troubadour musing out loud as he travels the world."New York Times
"If voices could glow, his would be shimmering somewhere between the stars in his eyes and the cold ground."Boston Globe
"The early promise (is realised) in this sublimely uplifting collection of songs." Music Week
Thousands of fans who were captivated by his inspiring melodies and gentle but finely observed, often wry and quirkily observant lyrics. Since the release of his debut album, he has toured non-stop. Initially playing intimate acoustic shows, he slowly won over bigger and bigger audiences, fleshing out his live performances with a band and sometimes string quartet. Extensive touring included support slots for celebrity fans who include Rufus Wainwright, Aimee Mann and John Mayer. "(Poetry and Aeroplanes) may be one of the best albums to come along in the last five years. Music like this is jet fuel on the fire of a broken heart." (John Mayer - Esquire Magazine.)
In 2006, in between performing at many major European festivals, Teitur started to record his second album. Stay Under The Stars, released to great acclaim in Europe and the US and debuting in the Top 10 in Denmark, subsequently going Gold there and earning him the accolade of Best Singer at the Danish Music Awards (Grammies) in March 2007.
Teitur was born and spent his early years in The Faroe Islands. These bleak, but beautiful windswept, rain lashed, rocky outcrops in the Atlantic are due north of the UK and lie roughly mid way between Norway and Iceland. First settled by Irish monks and later Vikings, the Faroes were initially part of Norway and then latterly Denmark, of which they are still an autonomous region. The forty seven thousand Faroese who inhabit the Faroes are fiercely independent, even refusing to join the EU with Denmark. They retain their own language, with Danish only being used for commerce. It was this isolated upbringing with an inevitable sense of alienation and separation that informs much of Teitur’s writing.
"Music is one of our main social activities," says Teitur. "There are always instruments in our homes. I started on my own music at thirteen, but the guitarist in my band was so much better than me and I was left at the back, playing acoustic. However I wrote all the lyrics from the start and in English. My native Faroese music is a part of me, but what really attracted me was pop music. Pop is almost all in English, which I find it gives me a bigger ocean of vocabulary," Teitur has more than one ocean of vocabulary to choose from as he speaks five languages. He finally decided to leave the islands, as many young Faroese do, at the age of 17 to study in Denmark. Then after a brief spell in Rome, he decided to base himself in London in 2002.
It is his songwriting and specifically a gift for acute empathetic observation that sets Teitur apart, a fact soon recognized by Corinne Bailey Rae who invited him to co-write with her early in her career. One of the songs they wrote together "Choux Pastry Heart" appears on her multi-platinum debut album. "I know some writers make a point about having a complete story: beginning, ending, moral, everything. I just do my best to describe it, and leave the rest up to mystery. I like it open-ended - to freeze a moment in time. Sometimes you write it right out of your head, then you see what you were saying when it’s finished. Sometimes, at that right place and time, there will be a key that unlocks our feelings." Teitur says.
In mid 2007, Teitur started to pull together the songs that make up his third album: The Singer:
"The songs are written over a time-span of one to seven years. They are stories of events and experiences - like drinking beers on a musty hotel floor with mysterious blues musician Chris Whitley, before he died of cancer (Legendary Afterparty), or stories that I have come across in my lifetime..."
In October Teitur travelled to an island off the coast of Sweden called Gotland with his sound engineer Jonas and arranger Trondur, and recorded the album on a 19th century Swedish Princess’ estate, normally a summer destination as a hotel, but at this time of year a beautiful, windswept and somewhat deserted piece of tranquility; interrupted only by the various musicians and singers who came to play or sing on the album, who all stayed at the hotel, during their work on the album.
"This album was made in tranquility and isolation. The result is a very natural and somehow nordic sounding record. Furthermore it has similarities to a musical or a book of short stories."
"On the cover of the album is a the picture of a cartoon figure which stands inside the room of an empty dollhouse. It looks almost like a skeleton and it has no face. The figure is a caricature of "The Singer" "
"Start Wasting My Time" Berlin 30 March 2008
