I believe this is the first solo record from Swedish artist David Fridlund, apparently better known for his work with David & the Citizens. Here Fridlund is joined by his brother Joel with occasional additional contributions on vocals (among them some very nice female singing), saxophone, violin, viola, cello, double bass, etc. I'm not terribly familiar with this general style of material, which is kind of like a more creative and layered take on the singer/songwriter thing with some light rock I suppose - where rather than taking the stripped down road of dry vocals and acoustic guitar, Fridlund's smooth singing is most often backed by piano. And despite being recorded largely at his home and a rehearsal space on an analog 8-track tape machine, the sound is really quite clean and effective. There's a good amount of density and brightness, the mix is full and even... it sounds very nice. It just goes to show you that when you know what you're doing a little can go a long fuckin' way. As for the actual songs, it tends to be the usual fare of honest personal work that's rather somber, though a lot of the work does have a strange sort of hopeful lightheartedness to it under the surface - it's not among the doom and gloom style of melancholic sorts. I personally prefer the acoustic guitar as an instrument to piano (I've just never been very fond of piano), but the vocal work of Fridlund and his contributors is very nicely executed, and the fact that some of the piano-based tracks are backed by bass and drums (etc.) does make a difference - notably in more memorable cuts like "White Van". There are some songs that really suit me, though. "Then I Will Miss You" is more traditional in its use of soft acoustic guitars and doubled vocals with some backing strings adding great melodies, "Before it Breaks" is the most moving of the stripped down piano/vocal pieces, etc. Opener "Circles" lets the guest female vocals play a lead role and uses piano very softly in the distance behind faint guitars and backing percussion (with a more "aggressive" chorus, by contrast), and I actually think this is a great piece - I would've loved to hear a few more along those lines. The layout looks fairly quaint, with a large amount of blank space, some cross-stitched designs of butterflies, a few tiny and colorful images taken during the recording process, and the lyrics in crisp type. Simple but effective in its matching of the musical delivery. As expected the lyrics are all rather personal, to varying degrees of seriousness and openness, with a good number of rather moving passages. "'Cause I'm further away each day as the darkness swallows you and summer keeps raging, And so I run across the lawn, Just leave me out of this, just get me home, 'Cause I've seen things that I could do without, And I've seen empty shells climb around from back to back, And it's a long walk through the neighborhood, Pass all those faces staring at you from behind those curtains..." Not bad. It's not totally my thing, and the 50+ minute running time is a little much for me, but then again, I'm a newcomer to listening to this general type of stuff as well, so... it's cool that there are definitely some songs here that I really enjoy.
[Adrian]
Running time - 52:48, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Circles, Then I Will Miss You, White Van, Before it Breaks]
Adrian Recordings - http://www.adrianrecordings.com
