Re: Stina Nordenstam

[94k068@chestud.chalmers.se (Lundstr”m, Henrik)]

>Hi Lovehounds!

>I thought Heather Nova was going to be my "Find Of The Year" but now Stina
>Nordenstam might usurp HN's position on my list.

>WHO IS STINA?

>I have no idea. Apparently she is Swedish. Apparently she has 2 albums, of
>which I have the second, "And She Closed Her Eyes". She writes and arranges
>all of her songs on this album. "And She Closed Her Eyes" was released in
>the US in 1994, and it was preceded by "Memories of a Color" in 1993. If
>any of you Swedish Lovehounds have any information about her, please send
>it to totoro@charm.net. As far as I can tell, she doesn't even have an
>unofficial homepage on the WWW.

Yep, she's Swedish! The first album, "Memories of a colour", was produced by 
top producer Johan Ekelund and was very good. 
"And she closed her eyes" is produced by members of the Swedish group 
Dive (check them out - they're great) and has, IMHO, a more interesting sound.

>WHAT DOES STINA LOOK LIKE?

>WHAT DOES STINA SOUND LIKE?

>Amazing! Unique! Original! She has a whispering little-girl voice that
>sounds a little clipped, mixed very loud in relation to the instruments.
>The effect is like a very intimate one-way conversation with a telepathic
>alien poet who is very, very far away. None of the songs really rock. They
>have a kind of lullaby quality that might make them good for twirly dancing
>with your baby. Some jazzy arrangements with trumpets and saxes. The lyrics
>are very mysterious...I think one song is about the singer recognizing a
>terrorist/bomber from the way he walks across a street. A lot of the songs
>have something familiar...I can say, "This is her Bel Canto song, this is
>her Bjork song, this is her Kate Bush song, this is her Astrud Gilberto (!)
>song, etc." However, her voice and singing style sets her very far apart
>from any of these artists. She has a Stina sound even more than Victoria
>Williams has a Victoria Williams sound, if you know what I mean. Stina's
>music is very soothing for me, though. The arrangements are very
>sophisticated although at first they sound very simple and Shawn Colvin-y.

Most of all, it's Rickie Lee Jones. The first album (a little bit jazzier) was 
very R L J. The second album is a bit different though, but she still 
sings like R L J.
I'm not sure, but I think that some songs from the first album is included on 
the US version of the second album.

Both albums are released in Sweden and UK, and the second is released in the 
US.


Henrik.