Delish (Norway) – the Shell (single/future album track)
Delish ( the duo Natali Abrahamsen Garner, Johan Lindvall, joined latterly by Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard and now by Martin Langlie on drums and percussion) consider themselves to be as much of an art project as an alt-pop trio and their live shows focus on performance art and theatre as much as on the music itself.
They were last here as long ago as March 2022 with a rather surreal track, ‘Talk’, which I thought would suit the soundtrack for Twin Peaks.
‘The Shell’ is the second teaser from their forthcoming debut full length album, which is set for release later in 2024.
Ambient indie pop spiced with jazz and experimental improvisation is their style. ‘The Shell’ is about as far from muzak as you can get. Martin Langlie sets up a hypnotising beat over which a variety of electronic sounds compete for your attention with the vocals provided by Ms Garner which are respectively applied like cream onto strawberries at Wimbledon.
(Incidentally, I didn’t think anyone could sound like Siv Jakobsen on prozac but she runs her pretty close at times).
This isn’t music for doing anything to apart from lapping it up. Delish-ous.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/delishuniverse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/delishuniverse/
Lea Kampmann (Faroe Islands) – Pappírstunn (single/track from forthcoming album)
Lea Kampmann has also paid us a visit previously, and as recently as January, when she was ‘Telji upp í hundrað‘. (Counting to 100’).
Here, on ‘Pappírstunn’ (‘Paper thin’), her second single from her forthcoming album, and written in collaboration with musical compatriot Teitur, she sings again in Faroese and this time about “feeling naked and vulnerable in the presence of the one you love.”
Hm. Okay, I’ve no problems with that; a bit of vulnerability can be called for at times. But it seems Lea has because, as she says, the song “explores the oscillation between being afraid to let go (of the one you love) due to the fear of getting hurt and, at the same time, feeling the necessity to dare to venture into the unknown because hope lies in being seen and caught when falling.”
I have to admit that part has left me confused, so I took a dive into the lyrics and guess what? Alles klar. The paper thin title refers to how she feels he (I’m guessing it’s a he, as always) can see right through her, which means that she is invisible and cannot return (his) love. Like a vampire cannot be alive if it cannot see itself in a mirror.
And so, like an exercise in origami gone sadly wrong, any attempt to manipulate the papier-mâché person for her benefit only succeeds in tearing her self esteem further apart.
Or something like that.
There is no confusion about the music. A simple undemanding ballad, again beautifully crafted, mainly acoustically, she could be Melanie on one of her softer numbers.
And she has a winning smile…
Lea Kampmann’s first Faroese-language album, ‘Seinferð’ (‘Slow Motion’), will be released on September 13th.
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leakampmannmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leakampmann/
Little Lies (Sweden) – Wildest Dreams (single/future album track)
Little Lies were also with us, last year in their case, in June and October to be precise, with ‘Us against the world’, the title track of their EP, and the single ‘Roadblocks’ respectively.
They are Mikael Nordgren and Anna Maria Espinosa and they forged successful music careers separately across Sweden for over a decade before breaking new ground as a duo. And yes, they are inspired by Fleetwood Mac.
Their latest single, and the last one before the release of full length debut album, ‘Destination Unknown’, on April 19th, is ‘Wildest Dreams’ which is set “on the sun-drenched shores of California” (where it was snowing a blizzard not so long ago but we’ll pass on that one).
The song is about “my mother” according to the band (we don’t know exactly whose mother but it doesn’t matter). “She had very vivid dreams for a while. So even though she did not leave her home, the mind was taking her to amazing places.”
I imagine that happened to many people during lockdown, as they undertook their own wild journeys to places off-limits.
The song is characterised by a ridiculously memorable bubble gum melody which you couldn’t forget even if you tried to. It’s straight out of a 1960s TV comedy series set in Orange County starring Lucille Ball. It’s more ‘period’ than an American full stop.
Last time out I praised Anna Maria for a voice as powerful as Anna von Hausswolff’s. This time she returns with her schoolgirl voice, a hint of Vanessa Paradis in it this time and more than enough to stimulate your own wildest dreams.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LittleLies.Music
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littleliesofficial/
