Underneath you will find frequently updates about IWASHERE. Follow our journey while we make new music, record and have concerts.
Underneath you will find frequently updates about IWASHERE. Follow our journey while we make new music, record and have concerts.
Underneath you will find frequently updates about IWASHERE. Follow our journey while we make new music, record and have concerts.
The Songs
All songs of IWASHERE tells its own unique story.
Our aim is to bridge worlds with the power of sound waves.
The songs is a result of crossing borders, share experiences, friendship, respect and love.
Over the years we have met so many strong, humble and powerful humans who all brings a unique and inspiring light into this world.
We are honoured, humble and proud to finally present our songs and the histories behind. Thank you for the trust, friendship and precious memories. Some of the essence of all this, magically managed to materialise, and here it is!
“Together we are bridging worlds
- one song at a time"
The Buffalos of Ed Iron Cloud
A dedication to Edward Iron Cloud from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, South Dakota.
In September 2018 we visited the homeland of the Great Sioux Nation in Lakota. We met the buffalo farmer Ed Iron Cloud and Lucille R. Contreras and had a little concert in their living room. We went out on the field to see if we could find the buffaloes, and after a good while we barely saw them in the far distance. We were asked if we could write a song for the buffaloes, and some months after we returned back home to Norway the song came.
"The Buffaloes of Ed Iron Cloud" is a dedication to the important work this family is doing on their homeland.
Writing the Trail of the West
A dedication to Rick Steber, Oregon State.
Rick Steber has gained a well-deserved national reputation and is best known for writing honest stories about the strong people and the open landscapes of the Old West. His gift to all of us is saving the stories of people that otherwise would be lost and forgotten. Steber is an engaging Western personality with more than thirty titles under his belt and over a million books in print.
He writes and presents these stories with compassion, understanding and intensity. Steber’s reputation as a historian and talented story-teller spans from coast to coast. He is the only Oregon author to have won the prestigious Western Writers of America Spur Award – Best Western Novel. In addition he has also won several other awards including the Western Heritage Award, Benjamin Franklin Award, and the Mid-America Publishers Award. He is a keen observer of the changing American West and he articulates these changes in prose that are boldly descriptive, invigorating and creative.
Steber speaks at national and international conferences and visits schools where he talks to students about the importance of education, developing reading and writing skills, and impressing upon them the value of saving our history for future generations.
We met Rick at his home in Prineville in Oregon, played in his forest, ate the best wild burgers and got some great stories from the wild wild west. This man carries an incredible knowledge about the US immigration history and manage to tell it like nobody else. This man is a real national treasure, and has phenomenal skills of visualising the many colours and faces of the brutal history of the United States of America.
More about Rick Steber: www.ricksteber.com
Children of the Sun
A dedication to Francis Carson from the Spokane Nation, Washington State.
Whipman
Thurmans Morning Song
A dedication to Thurman Horse (Canupa Nakiciniji) from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
Thurman Horse, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, was born January 12, 1962 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. From a family of nine, he fondly remembers watching his father doing artwork at the kitchen table and later learning carpentry from his father. He learned how to break horses, as well as sew his own clothes and even learned how to cook. Horse feels fortunate to have come from an artistic and sharing family, where pride in workmanship and positive reinforcement were instilled throughout his childhood. His artistic resume actually began in 1977, when he was a fifteen year old student at Porcupine Day school and gained recognition as Artist of the Year. In 1978, he won first place at the Intermountain Tribal Arts Festival, Brigham City, Utah. In 1984, he won first place in the Martin Luther King Art Contest. He earned his General Education diploma from Box Elder Job Corps, Nemo, South Dakota, in 1982.
Horse has supported his family through various forms of employment: As a gardener, horticulture designer, carpenter, electrician, plumber and as a working artist designing interior and exterior murals. A turning point for Horse occurred in 1989, when he decided to pursue his art work full time. He received a commission from the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota for two watercolor originals, which were later reproduced as posters commemorating the 1992 graduating class.
Aesthetically, Horse views the complex world in colors, line and design. The artistic urge is one of his earliest recollections. Before he started school, Horse remembers he would take a picture from a book or catalogue, place it on a window, and etch its likeness in the frost. In kindergarten, he loved to draw animals, but would always come back to his favorite subject, the human form. Native arts traditions oversee his anatomically correct animal and human subjects in challenging studies and compositions. Also evident in his work is influence by popular contemporary artist including T.C. Cannon, King Kuka and Kevin Red Star.
More about Thurman Horse at; https://www.sevenfiresart.com/collections/thurman-horse?page=1
Freds Song
A dedication to Fred Hill Sr. from the Nez Perce Nation, Oregon State.
Frederick A.Hill Sr, born & raised on the Umatilla Reservation of East Oregon. Tribes like the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla were here long before there was an Oregon Trail and their lives were never the same afterward.
Fred grew up with his tribal language taught to him by his grandmother and listening to coyotes tell things to come. Musically inclined as a child Fred was fortunate to have a piano in his home, and his maternal uncle was a band musician. He learned to harmonize with his voice at a young age and was in choir in school.
Fred gradually began sitting at the tribal drums & singing with his elder singers and they really relied on him in helping them carry old songs and not to forget them. Today, Fred teaches drumming & singing to high school age students and has three grown children and several grandchildren.
Wakpanmi Lake
A dedication to Sidney Has No Horses from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, South Dakota.
Medicine man
White Raven
A dedication to Loveda Elk from the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Nation, Oregon State.
One summer our dear friend Paul Howard introduced us to the amazing women. We immediately found a fellow sparked and talked for a very long time. One of the last things Loveda said to Martine was "You HAVE to meet my daughter, Acosia".
An artist, storyteller and healer.
Young Swan Rising
A dedication to Acosia Red Elk from the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Nation, Oregon State.
The times runs by and several summers we had great conversations with Acosias mom, Loveda. Acosia was busy dancing on great stages around the world, but FINALLY one summer we manage to meet, and all of us knew this was the very first beginning of something really good.
From there, it was a lot of surreal dreams, emailing, composing and planning, but only one year after we manage to bring Acosia to Norway! In september 2019 IWASHERE had our very first stage appearance and we were so trilled to have Acosia with us on stage.
The collaboration together with Acosia is very precious to us and we look forward to materialise so much more together in the near future.
Acosia is like a dancing light of wisdom and realisation. She carries a powerful voice, not only as a cultural carrier of history and as a dancer, but for the new generations of youths that are longing to hear a clear and distinct voice that they can relate to. Acosia has already become an ikon and for good reasons.
Marlene
A dedication to Marlene Locke from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, South Dakota.
In 2007 our dear friend Jay Coates visited the homeland of Marlene and they had a meeting at the old house at the Wounded Knee memorial. Jay had brought one of Martines earliest album and as a gift he played the music. From that day Martine had an open invitation to visit their homeland. For over ten years they kept the connection through Jay. One summer Marlene gave them a root called Timsala. She asked them to bring this plant home to Norway; "The spirits will work together". The root has had its own place in the centre of their home since then.
Marlene made her journey to the Spirit World the 30th of March 2018. Around the same time, her song Marlene materialised. About six months later Martine and Nils Jørgen was finally able to visited her homeland. Her song was played for her family and friends at Pine Ridge Reservation and three roots from the Timsala were placed on her her graveyard.
The Richland Wizard
A dedication to Paul Howard, Richland, Washington State.
Over 15 years ago this man wrote an email to Martine.
