Just over a year ago, Siv Jakobsen kicked off 2023 with one of my favourite albums of the year, her third album, Gardening. It's properly beautiful stuff. If you haven't listened yet: sort it out. It turns out there was a song missing, kind of. One that had been intended to be the opener for the album, but that Siv wasn't quite ready to put out at the time. A year on, America is out in the world and is, unsurprisingly, a stunner. Over to Siv...
I moved to America in 2009, shortly after my 20th birthday. Fueled by endless episodes of Gilmore Girls and Friends, I wanted to live out my version of the The American Dream. The song “America” is about the substantial grief I felt when I packed up my life and left the US again only 5 years later. After having been convinced for most of that time that I would make it my forever home, giving up that dream felt like a massive defeat.
In most ways I had an incredible experience in the US. I made friends for life and wouldn’t ever take back the time spent there. But when I realised that I wanted - needed - to go home to Norway, it felt like a real defeat. I felt like I had failed; at my life in the US, at my then crumbling relationship, and at my music-career that I was trying to get off the ground at that point. I went home, tail between my legs, realising that 20 year old me had been wrong.
America was the very first song recorded for Gardening. For a long time it was set to be the opening track, a subtle intro to the album ahead, with it’s Disney-esque intro and soft arrangement. However, as the recording process developed it became increasingly clear that although it is part of the Gardening universe for me on a personal level, it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the record. A bit of an odd one out thematically, and yet right at the heart of it all.
Belated happy new year, folks! Sorry for disappearing a bit... I felt under the weather and rundown by work (christmas in retail - hooray!) for most of December and over the New Year, and the blog has fallen a little by the wayside for a while now. I didn't find the time to really think about my albums of the year and haven't posted much lately, but I'm going to try my best to share posts more frequently this year.
In the absence of an AOTY post, I should definitely shoutout Maggie Rogers, Low Island, Rae Morris, First Aid Kit, Gang of Youths, Memorial, Everything Everything, The Big Moon, Bear's Den and Banji for releasing some of my favourite records of 2022. I love them all very much and will happily ramble about them all on request. There are already so many great releases in my diary for this year too...
Kicking off the year of posting with something not entirely new, but which I'm
pretty excited about. Next Friday sees the release of Gardening, the
third album from Siv Jakobsen. What I've heard of it is absolutely
divine (quelle surprise) and I really fell for this one last year. The track
is Sun, Moon, Stars and it is a collaboration with Ane Brun, who
Siv has long been a fan of. Dreamy times all round.
More on the record in due course (hey, I might even try to do an album write-up...!) but here's Siv on this latest single and collaborating with Ane: "a big part of why I wanted her to sing on this song in particular is because a lot of the influence I have from Ane is in it. The style of the guitar, the strings, it just felt like it was a nice nod to how she's inspired me, so to have her sing on it felt like a full circle moment. From the 16 year old Siv singing Ane's "Rubber & Soul" in a high school recital, to waiting for Ane outside her gig in Boston as an aspiring songwriting student and mega fan of 22, to becoming colleagues and friends and singing together over a decade later."
"Sun, Moon, Stars was written in November, a good few years ago. I remember humming the melody and working out the lyrics whilst out walking on a particularly dreary, dark and wet evening. Inspired by my least favourite month of the year and the heaviness I tend to feel during it, as well as the beauty and hope I've found in a companion that has the ability to pull me out of the dreariest corner of my mind, even during the darkest month of the year."
"I'm a tangerine, peel me, throw me in the sink. Leave me there to stink."
As opening lines go, Siv Jakobsen has struck lyrical gold. Having recently shared the first part of her Gardening record, we're onto desperately awaiting part two, which is due via The Nordic Mellow on 20th January. The first taste of that half is new track Tangerine. With dream team Marcus Hamblett and Emma Gatrill adding synths and bass clarinet to the track, it's a delectable musical delight.
The track is told from the perspective of somebody who feels helpless and trapped - "I imagined someone who was held against their own will inside a run of the mill suburban house, looking out from the front room and willing for someone to come let them out. This someone is mentally stuck, a deer in headlights, scared and frozen. Not wanting to stay but unable to leave - worthless in another's world, like a carefully peeled, squashed and tossed tangerine."
With my birthday impending next week, it'd be rude not to share a track called
Birthday... right? I was delighted to see Siv Jakobsen was
returning last month, and when I'm just about getting over the stunner
Most Of The Time she's back with another new track. Aaaaaaaagh.
Brilliant - and relatable - as ever! She's also sharing details of three UK/EU
shows this September, including London's The Slaughtered Lamb on
29th.
On the track, Siv shares: "I imagine a vast pool of ended relationships where both parties sit at
their own gloomy ends, greatly disliking or even hating the other. I wanted
to write a song with this in mind, that there are often two deflated and
angry hearts involved, both feeling the same anger, the same sadness.
The song is also a retrospective look at a hard time in my life - my 25th
birthday - with a strong realisation that I would never want to go back, no
matter the circumstances. To me it encapsulates a mutual feeling of wasted
effort and time toward something that was doomed to fail from the
beginning."
Rejoice, Siv Jakobsen is back! It feels like forever ago when I was falling in love with the tracks from A Temporary Soothing (definitely soothing, but not temporary, it turns out). The Norwegian singer-songwriter is back with a song about wanting to forget, and there is plenty more music on the way. Phew. I was in love with this campaign before I'd even clicked play on the track - Siv amongst sunflowers with bright dungarees on? This couldn't be more *my* thing if it tried! The track is a stunner too. Of course.
Having spent much of her life on the road previously, Siv spent time in her homeland since the last record, reconnecting with her origins - which included visiting a city that she used to live in many years ago, a visit which inspired the new track. "I knew that in going there it might awaken some difficult memories, but I was completely taken aback by how intensely I felt pulled back into who I was and how I felt all those years ago. I realised I had some unpacking to do, so that I could begin to properly come to terms with and understand those memories."
"Most Of The Time is about not being able to forget a particularly difficult relationship from my past. When left undealt with, the memories seemed to heighten in my sleep, in my subconscious, day and night, almost as if I was being haunted. It's about how our past affects our future, how it can affect our personalities morphing into someone slightly different. Being back in this place again after such a long time was a much greater shock to my system than I would have ever thought it could be, and it forced me to unbox a lot of things I thought I had safely stored away in the back corners of my mind. In the end, it's about reminding myself that I am feeling better now, most of the time."
When I saw this in my inbox, it had all the hallmarks of a track I might well
fall in love with. One of my favourite PR companies, and a feature from an
artist I admire who brought out one of my favourite records of 2020. For this
one, we're taking a trip to Norway for some stunning three-part harmonies
reminiscent of The Staves and I See Rivers. Tromso-via-Oslo
septet The Northern Belle are a new name for me, and on this one
singer-songwriter Stine Andreassen has fellow Nordic songstresses
Siv Jakobsen and Louien (another new name to me - but one I'm
excited to hear more from) joining her. The result, as harmonic as it is
heavenly, reflects a line sung by Siv in the track -
"one is only as strong as all of us combined."
No Rush is the first track from the group since last year's album
We Wither, We Bloom, and Stine explains how "it felt very important to share this song with someone I look up to
musically, especially after being isolated for so long. To be together about
something, and to be able to comfort one another is essential."
(more) albums of the year... part 4: in case you missed it, I'm sharing my favourite records of 2020 (main post here) this week. Seven albums a day across the week, in release order. Enjoy!
I had a copy of this in my inbox sent by my favourite PR in late 2019, but, as often happens, didn't immediately check it out. So little time, so many emails, etc. The release was delayed a few months due to ~everything~ and Siv had tours cancelled. Once I finally took a listen I was overwhelmed by how stunning it was, experiencing a wave of... woah, why didn't I listen to this sooner?! Living in Norway, Siv's content is often dreamily set against snowy backdrops, it can't really get any better. Favourite tracks here include Island, Anywhere Else and Fear The Fear. More of my thoughts on the record here.
The band's debut (and self-titled) album dropped in 2018, around the time that I saw them playing live on the last night of The Great Escape. The Brighton four-piece are masters of catchy sunshine-fuelled indie tunes, and this new record is no different - Think, Take Back The Track, Just A Minute, What Have You Got To Lose - so many tunes. The only sad thing is that they haven't been able to play the tracks live yet!
Like a few more on the list, I hadn't listened to Declan's debut record but immediately fell in love with The Key to Life on Earth. That's easily one of the best tracks of the year and the album deserves to be on the list for that track alone. It's a superb record, arriving in between The Magic Gang and Everything Everything... what a brill couple of weeks for indie music?! Other favourite tunes here include Rapture, Beautiful Faces and Emily.
One of my favourite moments of 2020 was in the run-up to the release of this record, when frontman Jonathan Higgs called in to BBC Radio 1 with Annie Mac to premiere a new track. He'd lost track of time and was at a supermarket when his phone started to ring. Cue running through the shop (with a bag of shopping from a different store) and answering the call, and then some muffled talking... before he returned to explain to Annie that a security guard had chased him out of the shop, assuming that he'd been shoplifting. Absolute favourite live radio moment of the year. Now, to the record: I LOVE this band and this is one of my favourite records of theirs. The last two are all-time faves, but they manage to up their game on each record. Nobody does lyrics like EE. So! Good! They bring me so much joy and I only wish that I'd been able to see tracks from the record performed live this year. (But on that note - they have been pretty creative, embracing technology, and even played a live show in VR...) Fave tracks here Planets, Arch Enemy, Black Hyena and Violent Sun.
This record is like nothing else on the list, or that you'll have listened to this year. I adore Cosmo's work and this is so so special. As with a couple of the other records on the list, I received this to review, completely out of the blue, a week or two before release. Apart from Cuckoo Song, the record is entirely without vocals, instead putting the songs of endangered British Birds at the forefront, blending them into a glorious chorus. It's a soothing listen from one of my favourite creators - a musical genius. Calming though it is, the record throws up important issues and puts these beautiful birds into the spotlight. It's hard to choose favourites, but I love this performance of Cuckoo Song live in the woods - playing birdsong back into nature. Magical!
Bear's Den & Paul Frith - Fragments (store / Spotify)
It's no secret that Bear's Den are a big favourite of mine, and I've been loving this since it was released a few months ago. A few years back, the band played a series of live shows where the genius Paul Frith reimagined BD tracks with a live orchestra (which I'm not at all bitter or distraught about missing out on....) Fragments is a collection of these orchestrated versions, with a selection of tracks from their three studio albums, and some brand new orchestral interludes. Generally a really lovely listen, but a particular dream of an album for a Bear's Den fan! Napoleon, Isaac and When You Break are live favourites of mine, and these versions are ace.
Fenne's debut record On Hold (2018) was (and is) a brilliant record and this is a superb follow-up. As with Brooke Bentham earlier in the week, this one is certainly for fans of the likes of Marika Hackman, Phoebe Bridgers, Billie Marten, and artists in that vein. I've written a bit this year about trying to actively seek out more music by women, on noticing my listening habits were orientated towards male artists. For anybody who still holds the opinion that men get more festival slots (etc) simply because they're making better music - you need to listen to these incredibly talented artists. Fenne's record is stunning. Line of Best Fit put it better than I could, commenting that the record is "a raw, cathartic, but incredibly gentle record." It fits so well. Favourite tunes here are Alapathy, Birthday and Solipsism. Look out for another familiar face in the video...
"It's a cliche, and everyone says it, but it really does feel like a form
of therapy to write [...] to perform a song is like having a pocket frozen
in time, and every song takes me back to a certain moment or part in my
life. They're like little time capsules. There are songs that I wrote years
ago and I can remember the situation that prompted the song, what the room I
wrote it in looked like, what the weather was like. It's like keeping a
really detailed diary."
A teeny album recommendation for your Friday - today brings new records from
Dan Croll and Brooke Bentham (I had written two other artists here but entirely misjudged their release days...) but you'll
struggle to find anything quite as, for want of a better word, soothing, than
this. This record is exactly the tonic we need for this year, and it'll bring
you comfort for years to come. A perfectly named release, and one delayed by
covid... I've had a stream of this in my inbox since January and I'm delighted
that it is finally out in the world. Siv Jakobsen's A Temporary Soothing is, in essence, sublime.
The album arrives in the wake of her debut EP The Lingering (2015) and
debut LP The Nordic Mellow (2017) and the extensive touring that she
did to support the release of both. After this busy period, she took some time to
rest at home in her native Norway, allowing the events and experiences of the
previous years to settle. Writing for a new record began...
Now, A Temporary Soothing is here. Released via Norwegian label
U OK? the record was produced by Chris Bond (who notably
produced the first two Ben Howard records.) Heavy work commitments
meant the pair met to record for intense periods of one week or two across the space of almost a year. This process allowed Siv creative freedom to try new
things, exploring ideas between recording sessions.
On writing, Siv comments that "there is often a preconceived notion made about artists who write 'sad
songs', that they must be sad people. I have made the same presumption about
others in the arts and this idea of the 'suffering artists' stuck more and
more to my consciousness after several encounters where I felt I was met
with amusement that I 'seemed like a happy person.'" Responding to these thoughts, she explains that the record
"was conceived from this building fear that I wouldn't be able to be both
happy and a good writer at the same time. Ultimately, it developed into a
broader look upon my relationship with fear and nerves."
With honesty, integrity and her personality at the heart of her writing, this
record, collectively, serves as a window onto this chapter of Siv's life.
Musically, the songs are like a warming hug against the snowy Norwegian
backdrop. Silky smooth vocals, sumptuous (I said it!!) strings, there's a lot
to like here. Anywhere Else is one of the best tracks you'll hear this
year, but it's hard to separate them. It's a really divine piece of work. I
best pencil it into the records of the year post plans now.
You know when an artist or song completely floors you? I'm currently mesmerised by the latest single from Siv Jakobsen, taken from the upcoming record A Temporary Soothing (an early listen is in my inbox and I can't wait to find a moment to listen...) Siv found herself in the midst of a pre-release tour when quarantine hit, and now finds herself home with her boyfriend and her dog, with much less to do, and a delayed album release. Having inadvertently written an album perfect for the situation we find ourselves in, offering 'a temporary soothing' against stress, anxiety and feelings of isolation, the record has taken on a new context, and the latest single is a particularly poignant and timely release.
Siv explains that the track "is about anxiety. Not the panicky, all-consuming kind that often results in a severe physical reaction, but a smoldering and quiet sort of anxiety, a sort of uncomfortable buzzing in the body that never quite leaves you be. It took me many years to understand that this also is a form of anxiety. It can be relatively quiet, but it's there - always." "This has had me in a soft grip for a long while, and I wrote Anywhere Else before I understood what it really was that I was experiencing. I thought it was normal to feel a bubbling sense of fear almost all the time. It can make me have a hard time deciding seemingly small things like what I'm going to eat, where I'm going to go on a walk, what coffee shop I'm going to go to, what I should wear, what I should do with my day, etc."
The new LP features work from producer Chris Bond (Ben Howard, Nick Mulvey) and mixing engineer Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth) - it has been rescheduled for release on August 21st, pre-order here (the merch looks lovely!!)
I'm finding myself listening to a lot of dreamy, folk-y music at the moment (think Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Lucy Rose and the like.) The world is a little bit crazy and these genres can really help to bring some relaxation and slow everything down. Where better to look than Siv Jakobsen, who recently shared the third and final single from upcoming album A Temporary Soothing. The album has unfortunately been pushed back until 21st August, with tour dates now taking place in September - we'll just have to be patient!
Talking about the new track, Siv said that "I had this image of a very old couple lying in bed together - still and stuck to the bed-frame, at the end of their life, taking their final breaths together. The song developed into a broader look upon what it is to stay with someone forever, to make that decision and be certain about it. To love someone and to receive love isn't always easy, and giving yourself to someone so completely can be frightening and all consuming." In a post online she explained that the video was shot and directed by Jorgen Bare while they were touring in Japan last year - showing footage of their travels in Tokyo and the mountain village Hijiori.
Norwegian solo artist Siv Jakobsen has recently shared new single Fear the Fear and announced details of the follow-up to her debut album. New record A Temporary Soothing, due 24th April, was recorded with producer Chris Bond (Ben Howard, Nick Mulvey) and mixed by Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth). It's an exploration of 'fear, anxiety, change, and the struggle between being healthy and being productive', arriving at a time where these themes are more relevant than ever to the majority of us.
Siv explains that the new single Fear The Fear was "born from a spiralling worry that I wouldn't be able to create well if I was well, happy, content with myself and my life. It touches on my tendency to hang out in my own head and stay there, worrying about something in a constant, stressful loop. Fear is a big element in my general state of being, and I'm often run by it [...] writing this song helped me get that spiralling fearfulness out of my system."
While Siv's debut album The Nordic Mellow was recorded in mere weeks, the second record is the result of almost a year of writing and recording. Working around a busy schedule for both Siv and producer Chris, the pair met in one and two week periods over this time, with the space between sessions allowing time for her to process the album, with freedom to develop her sound for this second record. She describes the record as "a way for me to look back and see what I have been going through, both the good and the bad [...] What I hope for is that people can take it and understand what they have been going through personally, too."
Pre-order A Temporary Soothing here.
