Silje Nergaard - Unclouded (2012) [Pop/Folk/Jazz]

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[Info]

Artist       : Silje Nergaard
Album        : Unclouded
Label        : Sony
Genre        : Pop
Street Date  : 2012-03-09
Quality      : 221 kbps / 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo
Encoder      : Lame 3.98.4 -V0
Size         : 82.65 MB
Time         : 49:25 min
Url          : [url=http://www.siljenergaard.com/]http://www.siljenergaard.com/[/url]

[Tracks]

1.  All I Had                                                          5:07
2.  Norwegian Boatsong                                                 6:21
3.  Gods Mistakes                                                      4:13
4.  The Moon's A Harsh Mistress                                        5:10
5.  Ordinary Sadness                                                   5:00
6.  When The Morning Comes (Song For Karla)                            3:51
7.  Det Var For Sent                                                   4:34
8.  When Our Tune Is Played                                            3:28
9.  He Must Have Been Telling A Lie                                    3:10
10. I Will Write You Every Day                                         3:43
11. Human                                                              4:48

[Notes]

The boundaries between jazz and pop are as flexible as they are delicate. If
you cross them the wrong foot first, you're likely to get lost in rough
country. Norwegian singer Silje Nergaard has always been a sensitive
crossover artist, but it has never been her aim to traverse demarcation
lines
according to some kind of programme. On the contrary, the focus of her
music is a lively connection with her unusually soft yet vivid voice. And
that
much applies to her new CD, Unclouded , as well.
Anyone who already knows Silje Nergaard will be surprised by Unclouded. Her
timbre sounds familiar, but everything else is completely new. She is only
accompanied here by two guitars, which are sometimes used as muted
percussion; there is no actual percussion, no keyboards, just the odd guest
who fits gently into the overall setting. This may seem like a drastic break
with her past, but it's actually an affirmation of her roots. As a child,
she liked
listening to her father play the guitar, and she even tried playing herself
until
she discovered how much it takes. At the outset of her career, she generally
performed together with only two musicians accompanying her, one of whom
was a guitarist as a rule. And she felt great. The now world-famous singer
had
to undergo a lengthy maturing process before she was able to return to that
feeling. "I'd been thinking about making this change for years, while I was
busy with other things. At some point I started to miss the openness and
spontaneity of those early years. I found myself longing for the space that
I
used to have as a singer and storyteller, and I wanted to return to that
point."
The two guitarists Hallgrim Bratberg and Havar Bendiksen are far more than
mere accompanists: they are co-conspirators, the sound of whose strings
blends with the singer's voice to form a single poem in music. Before Ms
Nergaard decided to embark on this project, she had already accumulated a
lot of experience with the two guitarists separately, but she had never
played
with both of them. "I spent a long time thinking about whom I wanted to
realise the project with: a strong personality and a big heart were
prerequisites. When I chose these two guys, I knew immediately that I'd made
the right decision. Our very first meeting had a familiar and intimate
atmosphere, and I realised that we were kindred souls."
In this setting, it wasn't hard for the Norwegian singer to rediscover
herself in
a kind of vocal mirror. She was amazed at just how easy singing can be. The
album title Unclouded refers to the carefree mood of childhood: children
just
open their mouths and start singing without giving it a second thought.
Silje
Nergaard reflected on the variety and wealth of nuance of the tool she knows
best, namely her own voice. Flanked by the two guitars, she felt as secure
as
in her childhood. "The three of us have really good chemistry together, it's
as
if we were breathing at the same pace. We have been appearing live as a trio
for two years now, so we've had plenty of opportunity to work on our sound
and on the interaction within the group. In this time we've evolved a sound
that doesn't sound produced, because it isn't produced!"
Silje Nergaard's new songs sound light as a feather, although they demand
the utmost concentration from all the artists all the time. Neither Ms
Nergaard nor the two guitarists show off their exceptional virtuosity, not
even for a moment: the focus is always on the song. And the songs
themselves haven't altered that much, for Silje Nergaard still writes them
sitting at the piano. She's not a good pianist, she says, "but a good song
must work on the piano. If I can play it in my own clumsy fashion on the
piano, then it will certainly work in every imaginable context, be it with
orchestral accompaniment or with a single guitar. For me, a song is always a
song."
And what songs they are on this new CD! The powerful piece Norwegian
Boatsong, for example: "Without intending to, I composed a song with a
Celtic flair to it. It sounds like a Scottish sailor's song. My songwriter
Mike
McGurk comes from Scotland. Normally I suggest the song titles myself, but
this time it was different. There's a mystic air to this piece about a girl
drifting through the mist without knowing where she's going." And there's an
Indian element here, too: blues guitarrist Knut Reiersrud, who puts in a
guest
appearance here, had recently bought himself a two-string guitar in India,
and
that contributes a special colouring to the song. So in a single number
there
are Celtic, Scandinavian and Indian influences!
Other pieces deal with everyday subjects, or in some cases with big
questions
affecting mankind. She usually sings in English, but she goes back to her
native tongue for Det Var For Sent. In All I Had, Nils Petter Molvaer joins
the
trio, while John Scofield makes a guest appearance in God’s Mistakes. No
less
surprising is her poetic version of the Killers song Human. Silje Nergaard
redefines her relationship with jazz in each new song she sings. This new
record may contain less jazz than any of her previous albums, but thanks to
the great degree of openness and the endless scope for nuances, less jazz
actually means more jazz in this case. "I really don't care at all about
genres",
the singer says. "To me, jazz is a synonym for playful and open. My own
sound has always been my special priority, and within this sound there's a
lot
going on. Some of the stuff I do is probably jazzier than other pieces. On
my
new album, the jazz element gets translated into poetry for the most part."
With Unclouded Silje Nergaard makes a completely new start, but still stays
true to herself. A moving album that fits perfectly into our time in its
touching frankness.


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