Stina Nordenstam - The World Is Saved

2004 album from the ethereal Swedish singer/songwriter. A melodic & mesmerizing merry go round of lounge-rat salty jazz sounds & melodica all over scored with gentle vocals that can touch the most stone clad human hearts. V2. Album Description

World saved? Done

Sweden has apparently provided its own answer to Hope Sandoval or Beth Gibbons: Stina Nordenstam. Her breathy voice and airy downtempo music initially sound a bit like those artists, but the spacey edges of her album makes it sound a lot more distant.

It opens with a piano being played in a quick, slightly ominous manner, and quickly gets joined by some jazzy percussion and subtle synth. Nordenstam wastes no time in singing deadpan: "And I tried to get up and I tried to move it/this thing won't let me/it's heavy as a man's body..."

A twangier note enters with "Winter Killing," but the album quickly dips back into sultry downtempo. Nordenstam quietly veers from ghostly jazz to airy classical pop to dark trip-hop, never staying too long on one particular kind of music. Listening to these songs is a bit like listening to a multitalented ghost in an abandoned cabaret.

With her sweet high voice and hard-to-classify pop, Stina Nordenstam actually resembles Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini. But where Torrini is warm and more organic, Nordenstam sounds a lot chillier and more ethereal. Her delicate pop is exquisitely pretty, but it takes a little while to fully get into.

Nordenstam is known for her pretty voice. It's sweet, high and sort of childish. She also sounds, in this particular recording, distant and a little mechanical, which adds to the chilly, ethereal edge. The only problem is "125," where Nordenstam's pretty voice sounds, uh, nasal. At the beginning, anyway -- by the time the keyboard kicks in, she has it under control.

The music is as unusual and eerie as her voice: We've got disjointed guitar rhythms, buttery keyboard melodies and jazzy percussion, much like other trip-hop artists. But Nordenstam gives them an extra edge, with swooning violins and clattery sound effects showing up in songs like "I'm Staring Out The World" and the creepily dark "This Morning Belongs to the Night."

Stina Nordenstam creates a chilly, eerie kind of trip-hop in "The World is Saved" -- and it works wonderfully. Despite some turnoffs (whose idea was that guitar intro to "Winter Killing"), the result is wintry beauty. July 30, 2005

Excellent

For all you Stina fans, this is her best album to date, you will not be disappointed. For those new or unfamiliar with Stina, where do I begin...Stina is ethereal, enigmatic, childlike, fragile, precise, dramatic, very sad, very hopeful, ice cold, and amazingly warm...I figured a nebulous description would be fitting because her music is all over the spectrum. I would say this is almost an album of hibernation; very quiet, introspective, and somewhat sad. The writing is crafted with an uncanny precision. Her sparse use of instruments throughout is brillianty executed. I know everyone wants a comparison...maybe if Bjork, Mum, Goldfrapp and Emiliana had a baby. But don't misunderstand for she can hold her own against anyone. December 20, 2004

Beyond my expectations...

I was unsure as to what direction our Stina might take after "This Is Stina Nordenstam" which seemed to blend her delicate pop instincts with entrancing, yet lighthearted backdrops...

But this album was enjoyable to me beyond what most albums could hope to do...

Every melody is part of a quiet yet riveting collection of ambient synths, stunded guitar plunking, backing choruses of her childlike voice, and intersperced with sensuous violin arrangements.

It is neither depressing nor hyper, but emotionally charged in its subtle way, filled with spaces and staccatos and simple beauty.

Each song is of tremendous quality here.

Everyone who appreciates Stina's music should be positively buzzing after this. December 19, 2004

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