It’s funny, only the other day we reviewed the Swede Stenlund’s single ‘Cyclism’ and pondered the many songs about cycling or at least with cycling in the title, which include, directly or indirectly, those by Queen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sia, Melanie and Katie Melua.
And for a moment I did believe that Frum had joined them, conjuring up an image in my mind of her furiously peddling up and down a Faroese hillside chased by a flock of sheep.
I had been seriously blindsided though because her ‘Cycle’ refers uniquely to a female one, the menstrual cycle, its power and importance (without it there would be no-one reading this) and the value of understanding it.
It’s brave to engage in such analysis because potentially you are halving your audience. Generally speaking blokes don’t want to know about any of this, only about how best to avoid getting you pregnant without impacting their own pleasure, which isn’t really the song’s objective.
I know this because I am one. (A bloke, not a woman).
I’m reminded how the BBC’s popular, blokeish Saturday lunchtime TV programme Football Focus made the mistake of introducing female presenters and their propensity to host sessions on subjects like the best sports bras and how players deal with having their periods on match days.
The ratings went south so fast they were in danger of falling off the Cape of Good Hope.
But Frum isn’t a football player as far as I know so her message is one of how understanding the nature of that cycle can be empowering.
And she connects it to the cyclical nature of life and the greater cycles of the Universe. Wheels within wheels, perhaps.
There might just be a Darwin 2.0 and an Einstein 2.0 jointly lurking within her.
It’s rather ethereal in nature, whirling and swirling around in a sort of melting pot, a mélange of intertwined melodies, harmonies and percussive effects that ably represents the theme here but which could also stand for the story of 20 million sperms battling to find an egg.
To put it another way, if Brian Eno can write music for airports, Frum can write them for the hanger.
(Please God she has a sense of humour!)
This is her third single of the year, and is out on Tutl Records. That suggests another album is on the way.
Find her on:
Website: https://frummusic.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frumverse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frumversee/
