Lina Nyberg
Released in March, 2016
DownBeat Five-Star Review
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRYYJfTcOQ&list=OLAK5uy_n1QIiFyfk2sRDeHPD2VkpvKhOuF4c_Uyw
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1cUEU0y1jeUkW5n4CGjy4r?si=1CYdZ13CQuSqtPcIUDlTLg
About:
When I released my last CD ”The Sirenades” (Hoob records 2014), on which my music for big band was performed, I knew that it would be the first CD in a row of three. I was trying to describe my reality through pictures of cyber-seas, monsters and waves. Now part two, “Aerials,” takes us away to avians and aviators. Initially, I got into a lot of literature about birds, both from zoological and mythological points of view. When I raised my glance even higher, I found a couple of pioneers that caught my interest. For example a beautiful quote from the cosmonaut Valentina ”Chayka” Tereshkova. In 1963, she made forty-eight orbits around the earth in 70 hours and 50 minutes, and she said these words while watching the sunrise from up there: “I see the horizon. A light blue, a beautiful band. This is the Earth. How beautiful it is! All goes well.” I think we might need some of that hopefulness in our dark era. The mysterious disappearance in 1937 of the pilot Amelia Earheart with her plane Electra also awoke my imagination and compassion.
Obviously, the stories in “Aerials” are made up by me and my perhaps exaggerated tendency to feel empathy. But the Aerial perspective also acts as a summons to rise above our daily problems and look at our lives, relationships and lovely planet from a distance — with less bias, and with more objectivity and solicitude.
Lina Nyberg
Track Listing:
Disc 1 Space
1. Fly Me To The Moon (Bart Howard) 4:47
2. Tico Tico (Aloysio de Oliveira/Zequinha de Abreu) 5:13
3. Where Flamingos Fly (Elthea Peale/Harold Courlander/John Benson Brooks) 5:37
4. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square (Eric Maschwitz/Manning Scherwin) 7:20
5. Bye Bye Blackbird (Ray Henderson/Mort Dixon) 5:55
6. Skylark (Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael) 3:52
7. Migration (Nyberg/Stackenäs/Persson/Kallerdahl/Danemo) 6:51
8. Nightbird (Al Cohn/Kitty Malone) 4:45
Disc 2 Birds (featuring: Vindla String Quartet)
1. The Benu Bird (Lina Nyberg) 3:42
2. Everyone Sang (Siegfried Sassoon/Lina Nyberg) 4:29
3. Chayka (Lina Nyberg) 5:08
4. The Phoenix (Lina Nyberg) 4:17
5. The Kite (Lina Nyberg) 4:11
6. Like a Sick Eagle (Charles Ives) 4:25
7. The Electra (Lina Nyberg) 5:51
8. Murmuration (Lina Nyberg) 9:31
9. Motacilla Alba (Lina Nyberg) 4:36
Personnel:
Lina Nyberg: vocals
Cecilia Persson: piano
David Stackenäs: guitar
Josef Kallerdahl: double bass and electric bass
Peter Danemo: drums, percussion and live electronics
Vindla String Quartet (Caroline Karpinska: violin; Maria Bergström: violin; Elina Nygren: viola; Gerda Holmquist cello) (1, 7)
Cappella Catharinae Choir (7)
Recorded live in front of a small audience October 14th 2015, at Kapellet, Stockholm by Göran Stegborn
Additional choir recordings by Göran Stegborn
Additional string recordings by David Carlsson, Gula Studion
Produced by Lina Nyberg
Executive producer: Josef Kallerdahl Mixed by Lina Nyberg and Göran Stegborn
Mastered by Johannes Lundberg
Photo: Miki Anagrius
Cover art and graphic design: Matilda Ruta
Review:
Lina Nyberg’s Aerials follows another double-CD, The Sirenades, from 2014. Featuring 17 tracks split between jazz quartet (disc one, Space) and half string quartet (disc two, Birds), Aerials is a theme-based gem on which standards like “Skylark” and “Fly Me To The Moon” (both sung as ballads) share company with unconventional arrangements, original music and fictional stories. The Swedish vocalist’s writing is stunning, especially for strings, and her singing is more personal than ever.
John Ephland (DownBeat)
