Oregon-based songwriter Anna Tivel’s latest album “Outsiders” starts with a lens so wide that we have left the planet to look back from a great distance at the turmoil and beauty of our shared humanity. From there, the lens pulls close and unfolds in a gripping collection of stories so often ignored. Tivel’s flawed and honest characters move through a landscape of hurt and loss, of small triumph and big love. In 11 songs full of recognition, veracity and hope, Tivel’s watchful and empathetic eye details the undeniable ache of living.
Recorded almost entirely live to tape in Rock Island, IL with producer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Leonard and engineer Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens), the album is a truly collaborative exploration. Tivel gathered the same vibrant group of friends from her acclaimed record, “The Question”, which was heralded as “one of the most ambitious folk records of 2019.”
“We holed up together in a little house a few miles from the studio,” she says, “walked there every day to sink deep into the music. No one had heard the songs beforehand, and I would play each one sitting on the floor trying to convey the gut feeling. Then we’d face each other in a circle and feel our way through, working to find the heart of each song in a few takes. Shane brings this layer of uninhibited magic to every session, setting the stage for everyone to listen deep and react with open doors. He gives himself as fully to sonic atmosphere as I do to words and I have a great amount of trust in his vision and admiration for the care he takes with the world of each song.”
The constraints of analog recording fostered a rawness and immediacy in the final tracks. The arrangements on “Outsiders” are spacious and full of intrigue, drawing you into the cinema of Tivel’s lyrics. The title track opens the album with a meditation on the first moon landing. “I wrote it sitting on the floor in front of the TV between fragments of an Apollo 11 documentary,” she recalls. “The news was feeling especially dark, full of pain and distorted truths, and watching all that incredible footage of human hope and achievement hit me so hard. For just that one moment in the great upheaval of the times, everyone paused together to witness something new and full of wonder.”
The second track “Black Umbrella” is a winding story that follows a small-town robbery and a bystander who tries to help only to fall under the weight of misconception and old, broken systems. “It’s a song about all the ways we fail to really see each other,” Tivel shares, “about poverty and desperation, race and power, history, opportunity, and otherness.”
While writing the album in 2019-20, Tivel found herself circling back again and again to this idea of otherness. “The deep division and ugly rhetoric being amplified–especially in the US–seeped into everything I wrote. I kept wanting to explore this feeling of being unseen, profoundly lonely and disconnected, and how it affects our perception of the world and our place in it,” she says. “Outsiders” is an album about looking more deeply into ourselves and each other, really trying to see and examine the internal and external forces that keep us from connecting in real ways and the forces that draw us together.”
Throughout her work, Tivel has emphasized storytelling and this album is no exception, building on the strength of her ability to observe and reflect with a clear-eyed empathy. Inspired by authors from Steinbeck to Morrison, Didion to Dubus, she imbues her songs with attentive detail and a dreamlike quality that leaves the ordinary feeling both palpable and poetic. “Tivel’s characters are common but unforgettable,” “Her images linger, and become populated with the energy of the real.”
“Outsiders” is out now on Mama Bird Recording Co.
the second single off Anna Tivel’s forthcoming album ‘Outsiders’, coming August 19th on c.
Hello Mary are that very rare band who nod to their influences while sounding completely new. Most importantly, these are great songs and they are great players . This sounds like hope to me.” – Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses, The Breeders, Belly
Hello Mary is a three-piece rock band from NYC comprised of guitarist/vocalist Helena Straight, drummer/vocalist Stella Wave and bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer. Melding together elements of indie rock, grunge and shoegaze, Hello Mary delivers lovely vocal harmonies layered over crunchy guitar parts, melodic bass lines, and driving drums that pay homage to the alt. rock scene of the 90’s.
For all the praise thrust on them, words can’t quite capture the sensational grit created by vocalist/guitarist Helena Straight, bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer, and drummer/vocalist Stella Wave as Hello Mary. Harnessing elements of shoegaze, indie, and alt-rock, the Brooklyn trio’s dense soundscapes nod to the ‘90s while simultaneously embracing distinct modernism. It’s no surprise that their grungy, high-fuzz rippers have been collecting acclaim from names that have shaped the contours of good rock music – but they’re not just a band’s band despite being students of the past, entrenched in the rigor of bygone scenes. Hello Mary are instantly accessible, refreshingly singular, and their music immediately quenches that ever-present thirst for catharsis.
Formed in 2019, Hello Mary self-released their debut album in 2020 when Straight and Oppenheimer were 16 and Wave was 19. The release established the band’s penchant for unpredictability, surprising melodic twists, and explosive instrumentation. Across seven songs, they flex their muscle for changing time signatures with perfect synchronicity, gratifying whiplash helped along by their composition that, sophisticated beyond their years, counterbalances sonic space with blindsiding moments of thunderous drums and guitar.
Since the debut, they’ve been refining their sound in the confines of the pandemic with impressive results: in addition to shows around city parks, they’ve opened for Sunflower Bean, Luna, Quicksand, Dehd, and Pretty Sick. Most recently, they teamed up with industry vet Bryce Goggin (Dinosaur Jr., Pavement) to produce their latest batch of ear-splitters, including “Stinge” and “Sink In.”
The two singles find the unsigned band dialling back the thrash of their earlier material, still packing the tracks with controlled blitz but in sparser environments that allow each of their individual talent to shine. It’s hard not to speak in hyperboles when Wave’s kick drum ignites every chorus across the pair of songs, when Oppenheimer slices through the fuzz with chugging basslines in “Stinge,” or when Straight’s searing guitar solo comes for you in “Sink In,” the only refuge from which is her crystalline voice that transcends the slick sludge. While the lyrics in their debut weren’t as robust as their instrumental offerings, resonant reflections on love and the loss of it now colour the music, rounding out their initial explorations of loneliness and isolation with experience.
Reflecting on “Stinge” and “Sink In,” Wave shares how the songs pair well together: “‘Stinge’ is a passion-filled, sad/angry song focusing on the polarizing emotions and back and forth feelings that come with nearing the end of a relationship (friend, romantic partner etc.), “Sink In” puts the relationship to rest. The feeling is less angry, and more accepting of the new state of things.”
She also sees the singles as representing a “new era” of Hello Mary. “It’s more mature on all fronts. Most of the songs on ‘Ginger’ were written when Helena and Mikaela were 14 years old. The song writing, even though it can be catchy and fun, is pretty amateur in comparison to the new songs.” Tighter collaboration and the pivot from DIY recording to studio time also contributes to the band’s elevated form. “Our ‘sound’ has become more unique since we have been playing together for longer. It’s more Hello Mary.”
“Hello Mary are my favorite new band from New York City. Sometimes you get lucky and discover a project that restores your faith in the new. Sometimes you just need a great show with passion, kids moshing, and guitars really, REALLY loud. Hello Mary is the future of rock & roll, and they’re only just beginning.” – Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean
“Hello Mary has everything that gets me truly excited about a band.. They have their own unique sound down to their strong adolescent bones” – Britta Philiips of Luna, Dean, Britta
The Hopeful and the Unafraid is Jason Anderson’s third solo album since the dissolution of his indie pop act Wolf Colonel. The previous New England and The Wreath found Anderson reverting to the Elliott Smith-style singer/songwriter vibe of his earliest days, but The Hopeful and the Unafraid is something entirely different. Kicking off with the nearly eight-minute epic “El Paso,” this album is aimed unapologetically at the new Bruce Springsteen vibe that sounds like what the Arcade Fire, Mariah, and the Hold Steady have been flirting with, but in a far more overt way.
They’re mostly forgotten now, but in the wake of Springsteen’s breakthrough success with 1975’s Born to Run, a whole school of blue-collar singer/songwriters emerged, mostly from the industrial northeast, who were aiming for a similar blend of Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison: play The Hopeful and the Unafraid back to back with any late-’70s album by the likes of Robert Ellis Orrall, Steve Forbert, John Cougar Mellencamp, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes or Elliott Murphy, and this defiantly retro collection of pop/rock tunes won’t sound a bit out of place.
From the honking saxophone that powers the bouncy title track, through the grandiose piano runs coloring “July 4, 2004,” “The Half of It,” and “Colonial Homes,” and from the powerhouse FM-radio swagger of “Watch Your Step” to the teenage desperation of the novelistic, detail-stuffed “The Post Office,”
Anderson has written an entire album’s worth of shameless, unabashed Bruce Springsteen homages/rip-offs. If nothing else, it’s a moderately fascinating exercise in Rutles-ization, and there’s no doubt that much of the album rocks quite hard in a refreshingly non-ironic way.
Just like on 2019’s excellent“In the Dark”, Rapport leader Maddy Wilde (Moon King, Spiral Beach) delivers six absolutely perfect new wave pop ditties. Full of chugging Cars guitars, twinkling OMD synths and Wilde’s bubblegum melodies, “FloatingThrough the Wonderwave” is an absolutely delightful ’80s throwback, with the jangle pop of “Trial Run” and the Air-like airiness of moody closer “My Bed” displaying a range that goes way beyond mere period pastiche.
Toronto-born Maddy Wilde (Moon King, Born Ruffians) formed Rapport after a decade of playing in various local bands and performing with other artists; Wilde’s imposter syndrome finally gave way to a desire to create music that she felt was under explored in her city. With band members Kurt Marble and Mike Pereira, (Twist, Ducks ltd, Most People) both experiencing the same urge to face the challenges of creating earnest pop despite their musical backgrounds in garage, punk and glam rock; Rapport embarked on a journey into the depths of classic pop.
Wilde’s arrangements combine her intuitive sense of harmony with a desire to sincerely capture the essence of sentimentality. Warm synth pads soften the space between Pereira’s punchy percussive bass style, referred to by the band as the “chug,” which steadily drives the songs forward, while Marble’s Knopfler-esque guitar lines play off of Maddy’s rich vocal melodies.
“Floating Through The Wonderwave” is Rapport taking a darker, more melancholic turn. Themes of jealousy, neuroses and self-doubt arise as Wilde explores the balance between artistic creation and self-promotion. “I had to uninstall social media apps on my phone when I realized they were a major source of anxiety and a hugely addictive waste of time which I could have spent making music. My creative practice was suffering as a result. But without these tools, how are artists meant to share their work?”
The concept of “turning off” – the target of Wilde’s musings on lead single ‘Video Star’ – is a presumptuous fantasy that she knows won’t last. Inevitably she will return to her old habits, mindlessly scrolling, endlessly roaming.. “Floating Through the Wonderwave”.
There’s a palatial poise to the ways in which Nemah Hasan lays herself bare. On “suicide,” she coos almost matter-of-factly, “I am a triple threat / Three nations want my head,” over the sparse yet lush folk-futurist balladic bedrock of her debut EP — named after the 11-acre farm in Milton, ON, where she grew up. The Palestinian-Canadian’s crucial voice is one that captures you with an unflinching confidentiality that recalls Mustafa’s landmark “When Smoke Rises”, as well as the chilling ability to orchestrate closeness and distance — and cinematically pan the lens between the two — that’s all Hasan’s own.
Toronto based singer, Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien makes music by herself under the name Blunt Chunks sneaks up on you when you least expect it. By the time the swaying country-twang of “Body Rush” fades out in echoing reverb into wry Faye Websterian domestic humidity on “Natural Actors,”Jaunt’s Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien has perhaps already played with expectations more than the average five-track debut EP. But “BWFW,” the fourth song in the cycle, is a Roman candle — a distortion-drenched alt-rock anthem with a barbed truth of startling simplicity at its centre: “When I’m with you, I’m alone.”
released May 6th, 2022
Produced by David Plowman, Nathan Burley and Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien at Patchwork Studios.
The Clean a South Island New Zealand indie rock band that formed in Dunedin in 1978. They have been described as the most influential band to come from the Flying Nun label, which recorded many artists associated with the “Dunedin sound”.
Led through a number of early rotating line-ups by brothers Hamish and David Kilgour, the band settled on their well-known and current line-up with bassist Robert Scott. The band chose their name from a character from the movie Free Ride called Mr. Clean. Hamish and David Kilgour started to play and write music together in Dunedin in 1978, “building up a fat songbook of primitive punk, minimalist pop, infectious folk rock, and adventurous psychedelic instrumentals. Their sound was built around David Kilgour’s off-kilter, 1960s-influenced guitar, Hamish’s motorik drumming, and melodic driving bass, first from Peter Gutteridge, then Robert Scott“.
The trio, which always wrote collectively, with all three members switching off on lead vocals, has reunited with inconsistent consistency, resulting in a bunch of new records and live performances from a group most fans thought they’d never hear or see again.
Back in Dunedin in late 1980, the Kilgours picked up Robert Scott on bass, completing the group’s classic line-up. The band’s 1981 debut single “Tally Ho!” was the second release on Roger Shepherd’s Flying Nun Records label. Other major tunes instantly memorable songs including ‘Anything Could Happen’, ‘Beatnik’ and ‘Getting Older’ and the lengthier drone of “Point That Thing Somewhere Else,” Clean songs were exercises in unbridled minimalism and maximum impact. David Kilgour didn’t play a lot of notes, but his guitar provided a haunting, half- psychedelic, half-spy-movie tone, with sleek, fuzzy lines that could lay down a trance and inspire sing-song silliness.
The Clean operated in fits and starts for the next four decades and beyond, exploring the confluence of noise and melody on essential early singles and EPs as well as branching into different articulations of their sound on full-length albums like 1994’s “Modern Rock” and 2009’s “Mister Pop”. The band remained sporadically active — including U.S. tours in 2012 and 2014 — until Hamish Kilgour’s death in 2022.
Boodle Boodle Boodle
A defining moment in New Zealand music history. In September 1981, The Clean – brothers David and Hamish Kilgour, and Robert Scott – entered a makeshift studio in Auckland’s Arch Hill and emerged with “Boodle Boodle Boodle”, one of the country’s landmark records.
The five-song EP, recorded by Chris Knox and Doug Hood and released on Flying Nun Records, followed the jangly single ‘Tally Ho!’, which had come out that same year and found its way to number 19 in the New Zealand charts. But “Boodle” would push things even further, eventually peaking within the top five and spending a good six months hanging around on the chart. Not bad for a handful of songs that commercial radio refused to play.
Through 1981 and 1982 they placed a string of vibrant indie EPs and singles in the New Zealand Top 20. The keyboard-driven classic groovy organ swing of ‘Beatnik’ from their second the seven-track EP “Great Sounds Great Good Sounds Good, So-So Sounds So-So, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten!!”..aided by heavy touring The third release from The Clean, and their second 12-inch EP from June 1982.
But for most of the 1980s, The Clean had disbanded; but during this time, the Kilgour brothers worked together on an experimental album and EP with the deliberately pun titles “The Great Unwashed” and “Clean Out of Our Minds”.
Even with the group in abeyance “The Odditties” compilation tape of unreleased material appeared in July 1983, followed by a live EP, “Live Dead Clean“, in 1986, and a greatest hits collection called “Compilation” and second “Odditties” tape in 1988. In 2003, the two-disc compilation “Anthology“, released through Merge Records, which awakened new interest in the band in the US, building on an international reputation that had been enhanced by endorsements from prominent 1990s indie groups such as Pavement and Yo La Tengo.
“Compilation” collects some, but not all, of the early stuff, including highlights from the two EPs and “Tally Ho!”; the import CD tacks on six live tracks. “Odditties” is just that, the veritable odds-and-sods collection; originally released on cassette, the CD also has extra material. And as the title would suggest, “Live Dead Clean” (recorded in ’81 and ’82, with several songs not found on the previous vinyl releases) was thought to be posthumous. But before that record even came out, there was already the Great Unwashed, which saw the Kilgour brothers taking up with original bassist (and one-time Chill member, though practically every Kiwi musician can say that) Peter Gutteridge in the place of Robert Scott, who’d gone and started the Bats. Just to further confuse the discography, the “Odditties 2” cassette mingles outtakes and live tracks (from ’79 to ’84) by the Clean and the GreatUnwashed.
In July 1988, Kilgour, Kilgour and Scott played a reunion gig at the Fulham Greyhound in London, resulting in the sublime and frenzied “In-a-Live” EP, which features five of the band’s best old songs (“Fish,” “Anything Could Happen,” “Flowers,” “Point That Thing Somewhere Else,” “Whatever I Do Is Right”), recorded, amazingly enough, on a 16-track board.
Vehicle
The Clean made what was technically its very first album. “Vehicle” finds the band in immaculate form, churning out little diamond cuts of nervous guitar, earnest vocal harmonies and pesky little hooks that sting, tickle and shock. The sound quality is better and the rhythms more elastic, but otherwise it’s as if they never left. “Draw(in)g to a (W)hole,” “Dunes,” “Big Cat” and “Diamond Shine” would all be candidates for the best little singles in the world if they came in 7-inch form; songs like “Home” and “I Can See” are gorgeously shimmering ballads.
The Clean toured some in support of “Vehicle” and then scattered again. David began a solo career, Robert continued with the Bats and Hamish moved to New York, where he and his wife formed the Mad Scene.
Like lovers who could never quite say goodbye, the group reunited in 1994 to record a new album. “Modern Rock” was released in late 1995, followed by “Unknown Country” in 1996. The trio went their separate ways yet again.
Modern Rock
“Modern Rock” was recorded and released. Suggesting influences like the Velvet Underground, Nick Drake and maybe even Stereolab (though the Clean has always wielded the same sort of rolling keyboard trickery), it’s a more grown-up affair that floats off-kilter melodies and tiny tensile guitar in a slower, softer swirl of cloudy organ lines and spacey electric piano textures, with liberal use of strings and folk instruments.
The archly titled “Modern Rock”, slyly digging at the tag often applied to the band’s music in earlier years, a la “college rock,” finds the trio merrily making its way through fourteen gently rocking, gently chiming originals. Though recorded over only ten days, the combined experience and ability of the three members allowed them to whip up a fairly elaborate set of songs, as indicated by some of the intriguing arrangements. The spacey echo on the keyboards for “Outside the Cage” and spectral backing vocals on “Something I Need” are two highlights among many.
There’s also a pleasant low fuzz at points bespeaking both the continuing influence of the Velvet Underground and New Zealand’s vaunted tape subculture that seems just right for the proceedings. Hearing Scott’s vocals on a slightly different tip than his work in the Bats is especially a treat — after the series of eternally sparkling jangle-rock he’s made his own, hearing more consciously experimental touches behind his voice makes a fine contrast. The Kilgours continue in their own particular veins, with everyone trading around vocals in a fairly even split. Those familiar with the band mostly through “Tally Ho!” or the other earlier work will find this version of the Clean — generally calmer in many areas, downright reflective or melancholic in more — an intriguing change. The members have matured, but in such a way as not to sound like typically sleepy midlife crises come to life.
Unknown Country
Originally released in 1996, The Clean’s “Unknown Country” makes its debut appearance on vinyl in the US on March 2021.
Of this album, The Clean’s David Kilgour writes, “The Clean always wanna try something different, but on this LP, we were obsessed with the idea.” Bandmate Robert Scott agrees, saying, “I really enjoyed recording this as it was free of expectation. Certainly our most experimental album.”
“Unknown Country” seems to be the sound of a group of songwriters and performers who don’t have the time or energy to dedicate to an album, showing little of the jangling, interesting pop/rock charms found in the band members’ full-time groups, the Bats and Bailter Space. The Clean is a supergroup gone sour. Making matters worse, there are a number of mind-numbing instrumental interludes that drag the album down.
Highlights such as “Happy Lil Fella” and “Clutch” sound like lesser tracks from the artists’ full-time bands. “Happy Lil Fella” sounds like a B-side to a song from the Bats’ Silverbeet. “Clutch” displays a heavy Chills vibe. “Rope” shows that the Clean had been following the work of Matador artists; it sounds like Pavement gone New Zealand. “Cooking Water” and “Wall Walk” might as well be Bailter Space on a bland day. The album couldn’t be more unfocused. It’s as if members of the Clean went into the studio with no ideas and simply toyed with sounds from their pasts and their peers, to no good effect. There’s not an ounce of passion in the music.
Getaway (Deluxe 2016 Remaster)
After time spent away working on solo projects and with other bands, the trio got back together in 2000 for a festival in their Dunedin hometown, they stayed together for more shows and a new album, “Getaway”, which was released in 2001 on MergeRecords and featured guests Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo.
Great album, great reissue. The piano-based “Slush Fund” versions are really something else. Favourite track: “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” (Slush Fund Version).
The Clean always had a hard time staying apart. Through the years, they would go their separate ways to work on other bands, like “the Bats” for one shining example, or on solo careers, but some inescapable force always drew them back together. When they made 2001’s “Getaway”, the Kilgour brothers, David and Hamish, and Robert Scott hadn’t made a record together in four years, yet it’s clear from the opening notes of the first song, the prettily droning “Stars,” that their almost telepathic chemistry was still as strong as ever.
The album features plenty of the sprightly, noisy jangle pop the trio is best known for while also taking side trips into lengthy guitar workouts, folky instrumentals, sweet indie pop ballads, and the occasional bit of jaunty rock & roll. Some of the songs have the kind of hooky melodies of their best work; some of them have a pleasantly off-kilter approach that is also reminiscent of their best work. The studio-fresh production and the graceful ease the three play the songs with means that “Getaway” lacks some of the scrappy youthfulness of their early recordings. They make up for it by exhibiting excess amounts of tender melodicism and sonic imagination, enough to make the record an under-the-radar indie rock gem. It’s no coincidence that two members of one of the bands considered indie rock’s best make guest appearances here; Ira and Georgia of Yo La Tengo owe plenty to the Clean, and their being on the record is a tribute to both the Clean’s historical importance and their continuing mastery.
Mister Pop
The Clean continue to release records “Mister Pop” in 2009, The Clean were the seeds of New Zealand punk. They carved out a big sandbox for everyone to play in, and their influence resonated not only in NZ but around the world. This fall’s “Mister Pop” sees The Clean continue the great pop pastiche. Circus ragas (“Moonjumper”), hazy sunset anthems (“In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul”), and the loose Dada approach to word-smithery continue alongside “proper” lyrical forays and a few Autobahn-referential instro moments to boot (“Tensile”).
Over the next few years the band kept playing shows, a few of which were documented on limited-edition live albums — 2001’s Slush Fund, 2003’s Syd’s Pink Wiring System, and 2008’s Mashed. The trio ended the decade with a new studio album, 2009’s Mister Pop, then spent the next year playing a select set of concerts around the globe.
Once back home, they began sessions for a possible new album, but abandoned them after the catastrophic earthquake that hit New Zealand in early 2011. They got back together to tour the next year, playing some shows in the U.S. They did the same in 2014, and then in early 2015 played two concerts in Australia. In the years that followed, the members of the Clean turned to other projects. Scott with the Bats and both Kilgour brothers with solo work.
Los Angeles alt-pop trio MUNA dropped a comment on Taylor James’ single-shot music video for “Kind of Girl” noting that the mountain-scraping country breakup song is “about accepting yourself as you are and admitting that you still want to grow and change.” This is one of those vibrant tracks you flip on when you want to pump yourself up before venturing outside again. It’s got a presence that can’t be denied: Dust-devil swirls of pedal steel and a desert trudge of acoustic guitar strumming slowly pick up speed as the gale of a chorus lifts the whole thing up and away. When Katie Gavin belts out the chorus—“Go out and meet somebody / Who actually likes me for me”—it’s like she’s already halfway out the front door with keys in hand.
This windswept and sumptuous heartland track was overshadowed by the ’90s alt-pop jam “Silk Chiffon” (featuring friend and labelhead Phoebe Bridgers) and the other flirtatious offerings on MUNA’s self-titled album. The trio served as a de facto lightning rod for several queer culture think-piece articles this year, but “Kind of Girl” is a masterful bit of sleight of hand in the middle of an otherwise very modern third album.
Country music is a symbol of traditional values, but here it’s atomized by an invigorating queer vision of pop music. Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson are the kind of songwriters who tell stories, but not in ink, because they can still change the ending. Enjoy blowing on a dandelion today, traditionalists, because the winds of pop are changing soon, and MUNA are one of the main catalysts for that shift.
Victoria Bergsman was first introduced to the music of Colin Blunstone while crate digging in the late 1990s with her bandmates from the indie-pop group The Concretes. Blunstone became a cornerstone influence on her solo career as Taken by Trees ever since the discovery of “One Year“, an underrated 1971 classic garbed in poppy strings and romantic longing. The singer-songwriter recently moved from Los Angeles back to Sweden and was working on her own material again when someone suggested she record some covers of songs by The Zombies frontman.
Bergsman’s incomparable alto range is the central draw for this wintery five-song collection of covers that pull from that debut solo record and its 1972 follow-up, “Ennismore”. Bergsman’s voice comfortably sits within the penumbra of everyday speaking tones, yet she amplifies her softer singing intonations just enough to create tension and a sense of theatricality. As a singer, Bergsman has always sounded like she’s been frozen behind a wall of ice, patiently thawing her way out over the course of each song. “One Year’s” original string arrangements are replaced by lilting vibraphones, flutes, sax, and clarinets throughout. Contributors for the EP included longtime friends Peter Bjorn and John, who featured Bergsman on their 2006 indie-pop hit “Young Folks.” Björn Yttling stepped in as the executive producer and guitarist at his studio space, while John Eriksson covered percussion.
Pop vibraphonist Esther Lennstrand is the real highlight on the release beyond Bergsman, though. Esther’s firm command of the instrument makes these covers stand out from Blunstone’s originals, even when comparisons are harsher on the slow-burning new interpretations. Hushed exchanges of vibraphone and sax illuminate the edges of “One Year’s” “Say You Don’t Mind” and “Ennismore’s” “Time’s Running Out.” The originals enjoyed the accompaniment of jaunty strings and Nick Drake–like acoustic drawls, respectively. The new versions stand on their own.
The other Ennismoresong on this release is “I Don’t Believe in Miracles,” on which Bergsman’s hesitant voice comes across like a dark lullaby in its construction and timbre. Taken by Trees as an ongoing project has always sought new and peculiar instruments to attach to its rich pop melodies. The same can be said of Another Year as a mournful saxophone drives the closing track “She Loves the Way They Love Her.” The original Zombies version was a madcap pop odyssey about stardom and a waning love affair, but Taken by Trees slows it down and focuses more on the woman at the center of the harsh spotlight who has dealt with her fair share of live performance anxiety.
One of Colin Blunstone’s best singles as a solo artist was “Caroline Good Bye,” which chronicled a breakup with actress Caroline Munro, who would go on to be a Bond girl in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me, among other roles. Bergsman’s rendition is beautiful in a more restrained and crystalline way, as vibraphone and piano inch forward and eventually meet with the full band as backup vocals rise and fall for the choruses.
“Another Year” is a demure EP that’s not overindulgent in its approach. It’s best to take it as a compact and nonchalant appetizer before possible future recordings from Taken by Trees, or just another reason to engage with Colin Blunstone’s strong solo discography again. Victoria Bergsman lends each of these songs her unique style with no pressure to overcommit beyond showcasing some quiet appreciation for another songwriter.
The Fat Angel Sings 