Kieli is the moniker of multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and composer Elin Pöllänen. Kieli’s artistic expression is inspired by her Swedish-Finnish-Karelian roots.
On her multilingual debut album From Summer to Spring, due out on May 26 via Cognitive Shift (PJ Harvey & Harry Escott, Roger Goula), Kieli invites the listener to a cinematic soundscape that is simultaneously beautiful, ingenuous, uplifting, and melancholic.
For years, Pöllänen has worked as a researcher exploring human relations to other animals and nature. New single ‘O’ is a marching anthem for the power of grief with particular reference to mass extinction, a tragedy she says is “upheld by indifference and separation”. “I wanted ‘O’ to portray a sense of wonder for our planet and the impactful everyday encounters with nature that are often taken for granted,” she says. “The song processes complex emotions, such as a kind of modern nostalgia: a deep longing for an interconnected and living world – a world that already exists, but that we are at risk of losing due to our inability to act and join the movement that already exists,” she continues.