Lands with a great pop tradition, flourishing research in metal and rich experimentation in jazz and its surroundings, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland are countries that have also allowed the flourishing of female authorial voices, very often of great appeal, almost always devoted to the search for a unique, peculiar, immediately recognisable language.
Moving through the decades, the languages (although English remains dominant) and the styles, the present selection of twenty songs draws on the best that the singer-songwriters from the Deep North have been able to offer and continue to offer. Clearly without any pretense of completeness (the list could easily be expanded to thirty/forty other names, even without considering names now belonging to the firmament such as Björk and Neneh Cherry), the playlist offers a large sampling of twenty unforgettable voices, including mainstream and avant-garde, past, present and glimpses of the future.
From the excruciating elegy of “Dynamite” by Stina Nordenstam, title track of his murky masterpiece, to the profound connection with the tradition of “Do you want me” by the extraordinary Sami author Mari Boine, passing through the punk effervescence of Ida Maria and the sense for the elegy of Anna Ternheim: different moods and refined sensibilities give way while keeping their specific personality, their true essence intact.
Among real celebrities in the homeland such as Laleh (also an author for globally renowned pop stars) and Amanda Jenssen, Ane Brun and of course Emilíana Torrini (here captured in the album that launched her into the elite of global alternative pop) some of the most fascinating voices of the dense Finnish avant-folk squadron also emerge (Islaja, Lau Nau).
Above all, the name of the Norwegian Joni Mitchell stands out, an author of extraordinary experience and maturity: Kari Bremnes, here caught at the end of her golden decade, in a song of refined rock tension.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
