Stina Nordenstam - The World Is Saved

The stuff dreams are made of

Stina Nordenstam's commercial strategy won't win her many new fans : having given only a handfull of interviews over the years and never toured except one show 14 years ago in London , the Scandinavian singer - songwritter seems to be all about creating the art but not really giving that much energy to promote it out there . At least , a rather pretty site made it's appearance on the net recently . Still , this Kate Bush-like resclusiveness bounds harmonically with the fragile , mysterious nature of her music .Nordenstam made her first appearance in the music scene in 1992 with the jazzy , eerie Memories Of A Colour , then shortly after that she released And She Closed Her Eyes , a track of which ( the tender " Little Star " ) was included in the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack , introducing the artist to a wider audience . Three , significally more downbeat and melancholic albums followed .

For her latest offering , the first to be released in the states since 1994 , Nordenstam once more combines serenity with darkness . There are two important qualities of hers that set her apart from most of the other "sad" girls in the music business today : first of all , it's her distinctive voice , a toxic purr of some sort which sounds so at home with the vulnerable ( " So This Is Goodbye ? " ) and hypnotic ( " So Lee " ) texture of her compositions . Then the lyrics are simply excellent ,witty and specific , as it often happens with scandinavian artists who despite singing in their second language , they dress their melodies with amazing words . " From Cayman With Love " finds a bitter lover realizing that exotic holidays are not the answer to loneliness ( " Thr Carribean sun / so leaves me cold / you never do / i want to see you / even want to see you bleed / i can't believe i paid for this / there's nothing here i need " ) . It's the naive , i-realize-it-now-that-i-sing-it vocal delivery of Nordenstam that makes the whole thing such a treat really .

Musically trumpets and flutes along with trip hop touches colour her moody , seductive melodies .From the sparse , naked " Parliament Squeare " ( in which " It maybe silent / but i hear bombs fall " ) from the spooky pop pantomima of "Butterfly " , everything here is eccentric , original and clearly coming straight from the lady's private little universe . Not a small achievement indeed ... June 15, 2006

Dreamy

Some artists make it difficult for themselves by recording such great work at the beginning of their careers, setting the bar too high for subsequent releases. And yes, "And She Closed Her Eyes" is such a marvelous, dreamy, haunting album that I never expected Ms N to release anything so good again. And perhaps "The World is Saved" doesn't quite send the same chill down my spine, but it is still bloody good. Surprisingly good in fact. Get On With Your Life, Winter Killing, On Falling, The Morning Belongs to the Night and The End of a Love Affair are stand out tracks. But the others are good too, not a dud one on the album. The same cutesy, whimsical fragile voice which seduced us in And She Closed Her Eyes hasn't lost any of its charm. That voice is accompanied by gentle, delicate atmospheric arrangements and most of these songs wouldn't have been out of place on And She Closed Her Eyes. In fact, this is the album which should have followed And She Closed Her Eyes. Charming and dreamy. Again. March 15, 2006

Save the world? 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 23, 2005

one of the best 2005

Stina Nordenstam is famous for avoiding interviews. Some pictures of her she
is wearing a wig. She hung out with Brett Anderson (Suede). She lives in
Sweden and has done six albums. Her timid child-like voice is famous. It sort of
reminds me of Mazzy Star or The Concretes. I saw The Concretes in New York City
recently and the lead singer was wearing a wig. At a radio show the next day,
she looked normal. But I got harassed by part of The Concretes for trying to
take a picture while they were performing. But Stina Nordenstam makes music
that is really cool. It's sort of like Portishead without the British hiphop
stuff. But it is its own thing too. She has done records about depression in the
past. This record at least tries to be more social. Her songs are often little
stories. Sometimes it feels like she is speaking one language and her loved
one speaks another. It is worth checking out. V2 has put out many of these weird
European records this year.

July 22, 2005

More reviews at Amazon.com ...