Wild Dog (Rune Grammofon)
Susanna
Released March 16, 2012
The Guardian 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2012
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nqVlRFpxFUOESr65eUBDf9idEpyx3xxF8
Spotify:
About:
“Wild Dog” is Susanna´s eight album, including three with Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, her ”Norwegian” album ”Jeg Vil Hjem Til Menneskene” and the recent ECM album with Giovanna Pessi. That is effectively one album a year of quality releases since her debut in 2004, indeed a very rare treat these days. Possibly best known for her unique and striking interpretations of iconic songs like ”Jolene”, ”Hallelujah” and ”Love Will Tear Us Apart”, she has also proved herself as an original songwriter with a strong signature. Bonnie ”Prince” Billy has performed and recorded her songs and Mojo named her song ”Believer” as ”one of the greatest break-up songs ever”. The ten originals on ”Wild Dog” are darker, wilder and more intensely seductive than ever. Susanna has assembled some prominent guests on the album with Emmett Kelly from Bonnie ”Prince” Billy´s band and Jeremy Gara from Arcade Fire appearing on all ten tracks while Shahzad Ismaily is credited on seven tracks and Jo Berger Myhre on two. Co-producer Helge Sten (Deathprod) is typically credited with ”space and beyond” on one track while The Sheriffs of Nothingness (Ole Henrik Moe and Kari Rønnekleiv) do their thing on another track.
Track Listing:
1. Imagine (Susanna) 04:00
2. Freeze (Susanna) 02:59
3. Rolling on Rolling Stone (Susanna) 03:34
4. Oh, I Am Stuck (Susanna) 03:33
5. Starving Soul (Susanna) 03:50
6. Invitation (Susanna) 02:56
7. Wild Horse Wild Dog (Susanna) 04:03
8. There is Nothing Funny About This (Susanna) 02:19
9. Her Eyes (Susanna) 04:51
10. Lonely Heart (Susanna) 02:54
Personnel:
Susanna Karolina Wallumrød: vocals, piano, keyboards
Emmett Kelly: guitars, vocals
Jeremy Gara: drums
Jo Berger Myhre: double bass (3), space and beyond (3), bass guitar (7)
Ole Henrik Moe: violin, viola, musical saw (6)
Kari Rønnekleiv: violin (6)
Shahzad Ismaily: bass guitar (1, 2, 4, 5, 8-10)
Recorded at Atlantis Studio, by Janne Hansson; Ocean Sound Recordings, by Eyvinn Magnus Solberg, Helge Sten and Henning Svoren; Audio Virus Lab, by Helge Sten and Susanna K. Wallumrød
Mixed and Mastered by Helge Sten
Producer: Deathprod and Susanna
Sleeve: Kim Hiorthøy
Review:
Susanna Wallumrød, the Norwegian singer-songwriter, closed her London show with a desolate, unsettlingly reharmonised cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. It made an apposite encore, since this unique artist had spent much of the previous 80 minutes quietly tearing the emotions of her listeners apart, and just as attentively putting them back together again.
“For those who don’t know me, I am Susanna,” she told the St Luke’s audience, before gesturing toward her guitarist Helge Sten and drummer Erland Dahlen. “But tonight we all three are Susanna.” She had a point, since the Deathprod/Supersilent guitarist’s quivering bottleneck and tremolo sounds, and Dahlen’s spooky musical-saw effects and mallet-driven percussion, were often inseparably fused with her voice and stripped-down piano lines.
The trio are showcasing material from this year’s Wild Dog album, alongside favourites going back to 2004, when Susanna began to entrance audiences in the duo Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, with Morten Qvenild on keyboards. The current band plays rougher, more interactive and directly soulful music, but the impact is just as hypnotic.
Susanna’s pealing-bell long notes and understated dynamic shifts subtly sketched her song Imagine, and gained force against the stamping pulse and guitar buzz of Demon Dance. She’s given to quirky volume-changes while shaping a sustained sound, which influences the balance of impulsiveness and stillness in her music. Her whispered, fearfully reverential account of Dolly Parton’s Jolene went quiet and seemed to have ended, before the intruder’s name returned on a terrifying rising repeat. Wild Horse, Wild Dog was a love-as-madness nightmare revealing Susanna’s soul power; and a sublime blend of a clear, hymn-like vocal (on a poem by Norwegian writer Gunvor Hofmo) with distant saw and bottleneck sounds, made for a contrasting sound-texture piece. It was music created for the sake of it, without a hint of calculation beyond the honing of an inimitable craft.
John Fordham (The Guardian)
