A welcome rabbit hole

I find “falling into a rabbit hole” a good description of the process where I stumble upon something that sends me to google and onwards through a labyrinth of pages, links and intriguing articles as I quench my thirst for answers to my curiosity. Sometimes it’s an unnecessary distraction and a response to be avoided at all costs, for who knows where it will take me and how long I might be before I resurface. At other times, it’s a welcome distraction - and that’s exactly how I felt about this particular rabbit hole.

I switched the radio on for a short time whilst I completed some kind of boring task and stumbled upon the most extraordinary sound. I’d not heard anything quite like it and for a moment I wondered what on earth I was listening to. Was it something being played backwards? Surely not - this was Radio 3 and they don’t do such things! I missed the announcement of what it was, so came downstairs and immediately found the webpage with the playlist for the programme I had heard.

I clicked on that link to replay and heard that instantly recognisable sound. My Hero pricked up his ears - what on earth…?

As I listened, I googled Maria Mortensson. If you’ve read my blog posts recently, you might guess what it was that immediately piqued my further interest. I had been listening to the sounds of the Sami people performed by a young yoiker .

What? You can imagine the word I next typed out on my keyboard.

Yoik. (Or Joik, it seems)

I was beginning to find those sounds quite haunting too.

I invite you to fall down the yoik rabbit hole for yourself then. You might welcome a distraction as much as I did in these strange times.

You might even be tempted to try it for yourself.

Something is drawing me to the Arctic Circle I think. That’s probably not a bad place to be right now, either!