Haldi explores roots of Estonians’ shared outlook on new album

Estonian musician Haldi Välimäe is exploring what holds Estonians together on her new album, she told ERR’s programme Hommik Anuga.

“It’s an album of big and important questions,” Haldi said. “I ask who we are and why we are the way we are.” She said the record also considers Estonia’s cultural sphere, including social relationships.

Haldi said she began looking more deeply into her identity during unsettled times, and that the search reached further back than the present day. She wonders what forms a shared outlook beyond having been born in the same environment, and what keeps people in Estonia even when they want to leave and later return home.

She spent years thinking about how to write the album and saved fragments of melodies, but said the lyrics did not come until a major impetus arrived: the birth of her son, Theodor, who was nearly 11 months old at the time of the interview. She said becoming a mother had changed her social sensibility.

The album, titled Safiir, is a continuous narrative rather than a collection of songs, Haldi said. It also includes sounds of Theodor calling out. She thanked his father and grandparents, who she said had likely walked thousands of kilometres outdoors while he napped so she could work on the record.