This Is Stina Nordenstam
The music of Stina Nordenstam encompasses a place most consider private: a hiding place where sorrow flourishes into beauty and wonder. On her first four recordings, her haunted child voice wrapped itself around brooding jazz-pop, chillingly isolated folk, and crushing, heavy slabs of claustrophobic sound. Her fifth release carries all these traits into a breathless 32-minute record that is relentless in its mix of beautiful melodies and layered production. With tech heavies Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom collaborating with Nordenstam, the sound ebbs and flows moodily--one moment presenting crashing waves of sounds, the next allowing Nordenstam her talent for eliciting the deepest emotions quietly.Suede's Brett Anderson complements Stina nicely with understated vocals, helping add an element both otherworld-spacy and unbashedly poppy. But the core of it all lies with Nordenstam--and her voice, songwriting, and lyrics are at their most eager to please, with the hummable quotient at a peak. OnThis Is Stina Nordenstam, Nordenstam peeps out of her emotional shell for a bit, while never losing the qualities that keep her music unique.--Andy Waltzer