On a visit to the Faroese capital a few years ago, the haar drifted in off the sea, as it so often does, and within an hour or two Tórshavn harbour was shrouded in thick fog. Slowly, the town seemed to settle into an eerie quiet, broken after a while by the distant but unmistakable sound of a brass band.

The Faroese brass band tradition is just one aspect of the islands’ surprisingly diverse musical life. Visitors interested in music go to the islands looking for folksy fiddlers and austere renderings of the psalms — the latter deeply influence by the work of Thomas Kingo, a Danish baroque hymnographer whose Psalmebog is still staple fare in many Faroese churches.