Band of the Month: Nive Nielsen

Uke-wielding Eskimo girl records with John Parish

By Sarah Collins
Published: July 28th, 2009 | 7:00am

WHO IT IS
Singer Nive Nielsen and her multi-instrumentalist boyfriend, Jan de Vroede, plus a rotating cast of friends and musicians called the Deer Children.

LOCATION
Nuuk, Greenland

FILE UNDER
Shockingly catchy and surprising acoustic pop

IN A NUTSHELL
Nive Nielsen left this challenge on her SonicBids page: “I betcha you've never written about a ukulele-wielding Eskimo girl singing about murderous vacuum cleaners and ghost bugs.” She’s not wrong. Nielsen’s oddball pop songs are just a little bit different from anyone else’s — it would be hard not to be when you live in a country with only 58,000 residents and no roads.

“On the radio we hear mainstream, Greenlandic oldies and classical music,” Nielsen says. “People sometimes compare me to Cat Power or Neko Case or even Björk — but none of them I ever heard before leaving Greenland.” Though she considers herself a musician from Greenland rather than a Greenlandic musician, Nielsen admits that the geographic reality of isolation seeps into her songs.

But it’s not novelty that makes her songs great. It’s an uncanny ear and unmistakable talent that make Nielsen worth paying attention too. That’s what gets greats like John Parish to record with her.

While Nielsen’s talent is obvious, it’s still a surprise to hear how raw it is. “A couple years ago… I met my boyfriend-bandmate, Jan,” she says. “We decided to make a band together. I 'd never sung or played any instrument before.” De Vroede must have recognized her potential, and he found the perfect way to tap it. “For my birthday, Jan gave me a little red ukulele… I'd never really played guitar before or anything, but as I was alone a lot and as it was freezing outside, I started to mess around with it. A few months later, he came back to visit and I had made a bunch of songs.”

The two started working together to flesh out Nielsen’s spontaneous strum-and-sing songs, adding instrumentation and recording on the fly. De Vroede built a makeshift recording studio in the attic and their demos began drawing attention. “A few people… had told John Parish about me. And told me about him, about PJ Harvey and Eels and a whole lot of other music he'd done. They thought he'd be the perfect guy to record me,” says Nielsen. “Up until then I'd never even considered doing a ‘real’ record.” Parish liked what he heard, and invited Nielsen to his studio to record a few songs. The songs were a success, and they decided to work on the rest of the record together. The result is Sings, an EP full of simple — but never simplistic — songs.

“This whole recording process at John's turned out to be just lovely,” says Nielsen. “I'm very proud of what we accomplished there — and that's really thanks to him.”

WHAT’S AHEAD
Sings is available via iTunes (listed simply under “Nive”) with a physical version set for release in the US this fall.

MORE INFO
Nive Nielsen’s MySpace

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Nive Nielsen is Venus Zine’s "Band of the Month" for July 2009. Visit Venus Zine’s Sonic Bids Page to submit your profile for coverage consideration.