Pitchfork
October 27, 2010
Link
7.6
"Good writing cannot permit itself to be contained within checkpoints and borders," English novelist Zadie Smith writes in the preface to a recent European short-story anthology. If nothing else, unlikely Swedish pop star Annika Norlin is a very good writer. Her albums as Hello Saferide, both 2005's Introducing... and 2008's tellingly named More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide, demonstrate an unusual aptitude for pitch-perfect fictions. Norlin finds the sublime in everyday life and shows strength by being unafraid to bare weakness. Her first Swedish-language album as Säkert!, an eponymous 2007 release of homespun indie pop, went gold in her native country and won two Swedish Grammis, including an award for lyricist of the year.
Norlin returns to the Swedish language on her second Säkert! album, and once again her songwriting deserves to transcend cultural boundaries. Musically, Facit is more richly arranged than its predecessor, but also darker, with minor chords even among the fast songs. Henrik Oja, who again produces and now also gets co-writing credit, can count free jazz among his recent work; here he favors a dusky, approachable jangle that puts the focus on Norlin's conversational vocals. So sooner or later you're going to have to try to understand what she's singing about, whether a holy misfit with the same first name as the prime minister, a young rebel who reminds the narrator of her own faded idealism, or an insecure woman who can't help but go back to a former lover, like Liz Lemon returning to loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy in old episodes of "30 Rock". Non-Swedish phrases jump out here and there: Rosa Parks, Lonely Planet, Rotary. If you can watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with subtitles, then you can wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of Facit, but it sure helps to follow along by mousing over the lyrics in Google Translate.
It turns out there's a wedding song, "Dansa, fastän", where horns, handclaps, and Daniel Berglund's subtle drumming nicely frame Norlin's romantic disillusionment. There's a funeral song, "När du dör", where a whispery Norlin imagines a dead lover turning into a tree, so future generations can meet him, or else that tree getting cut down to make paper, in which case she'd write letters with pen again-- she'd write poetry. And best of all, there's an unrequited-love song, "Får jag", where a couple go to a Stockholm bar called Dovas, watch hockey on TV without watching hockey, and lean in close to each other right when the score reaches 2-0 versus Finland: a stomach-tingling moment that, like the inland simplicity to which it hearkens, is doomed not to last. There was a minor Swedish media frenzy this summer after a magazine reported that Norlin would be quitting music. She has since dismissed such rumors, but Facit makes it easy to see why people might want to believe them. Although obviously crafted with great care, the songs here feel tremendously naked and transparent, even to someone who doesn't speak the language.
Norlin returns to the Swedish language on her second Säkert! album, and once again her songwriting deserves to transcend cultural boundaries. Musically, Facit is more richly arranged than its predecessor, but also darker, with minor chords even among the fast songs. Henrik Oja, who again produces and now also gets co-writing credit, can count free jazz among his recent work; here he favors a dusky, approachable jangle that puts the focus on Norlin's conversational vocals. So sooner or later you're going to have to try to understand what she's singing about, whether a holy misfit with the same first name as the prime minister, a young rebel who reminds the narrator of her own faded idealism, or an insecure woman who can't help but go back to a former lover, like Liz Lemon returning to loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy in old episodes of "30 Rock". Non-Swedish phrases jump out here and there: Rosa Parks, Lonely Planet, Rotary. If you can watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with subtitles, then you can wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of Facit, but it sure helps to follow along by mousing over the lyrics in Google Translate.
It turns out there's a wedding song, "Dansa, fastän", where horns, handclaps, and Daniel Berglund's subtle drumming nicely frame Norlin's romantic disillusionment. There's a funeral song, "När du dör", where a whispery Norlin imagines a dead lover turning into a tree, so future generations can meet him, or else that tree getting cut down to make paper, in which case she'd write letters with pen again-- she'd write poetry. And best of all, there's an unrequited-love song, "Får jag", where a couple go to a Stockholm bar called Dovas, watch hockey on TV without watching hockey, and lean in close to each other right when the score reaches 2-0 versus Finland: a stomach-tingling moment that, like the inland simplicity to which it hearkens, is doomed not to last. There was a minor Swedish media frenzy this summer after a magazine reported that Norlin would be quitting music. She has since dismissed such rumors, but Facit makes it easy to see why people might want to believe them. Although obviously crafted with great care, the songs here feel tremendously naked and transparent, even to someone who doesn't speak the language.
