Stina Nordenstam

she also did three or four songs as a soundtrack for some european film (the photographer's wife); apparently this was actually slated to be a golden palominos project but for some reason came out as stina nordenstam/anton fier. I have this if anyone wants a copy, it's impossible to find now.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, June 19, 2003 5:12 PM (7 years ago)

weird that virtually nothing is known about this project aside from speculation based on the cover info. two of the tracks are listed as Descendence remixes and the other as a Microman remix, so I wonder if the original versions are out there somewhere. it's possible that it wasn't meant to be a soundtrack at all and just has a misleadingly cinematic title, cf. the Olivia Tremor Control's Music from the Unrealized Film Script... album.

one film that Stina really did score was Jean Claude, a 2002 Swedish television documentary about a homeless Parisian man. it's interesting (to me) that a few tracks from The World Is Saved ("I'm Staring Out the World", "The World Is Saved", "Morning Belongs to the Night", and the bonus track "Failing to Fly") originally appeared on that soundtrack in slightly unfinished form. while a lot of the rest of the material on The World Is Saved veers toward trip-hop (or fairly modern indie pop, anyways) and has semi-narrative lyrics about adultery and postcards and turning into butterflies, those tracks have always stood out for me as being really organically/classically arranged and lyrically abstract, and I wonder how an entire album of that kind of material — or even a double album with one disc of "I'm Staring at the World" sounding stuff and another of "Butterfly" sounding stuff — would have turned out. brilliant, possibly.

I just wish she'd release the handful of songs from Jean Claude that didn't make it onto the album. "Give Me More of Everything" has a particularly exquisite arrangement of strings and woodwinds and creaking wagon wheels (?) that would've been a highlight on any of her albums. I really just wish she'd put out a new album one of these days, though, even if it's self-released.

People who like those might like a lot of the darker songs on Lhasa's The Living Road album, although Lhasa is pretty much the opposite of Stina vocally.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, January 3, 2005 7:30 AM (6 years ago)

she said in an interview around the time The World Is Saved came out that she rarely listened to music by other singers but that Lhasa was one she enjoyed. one artist who really reminds me of Stina is former Sparklehorse collaborator Sol Seppy, who put out a solo album and EP in 2006. I'm suspicious of reviews that compare other artists to Stina Nordenstam, though. it seems like her name is whipped out almost as lazily as Bjork's to describe any and all "quirky", "mysterious" Scandinavian female singer-songwriters regardless of what their music actually sounds like.

it's so right that it seems this thread is always bumped every winter!

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Thursday, January 4, 2007 9:30 AM (5 years ago)

Well, still fall here but the time is right. And Memories of a Color is sounding good right this second.

an apt Sol Seppy reference upthread :)

miss you boo :-( come out of retirement

there used to be a tour section on her website which when you clicked it read "Stina don't tour"

damn it thread bumpers on this

that said this sol seppy album is kind of amazing

I just wish she'd release the handful of songs from Jean Claude that didn't make it onto the album. "Give Me More of Everything" has a particularly exquisite arrangement of strings and woodwinds and creaking wagon wheels (?) that would've been a highlight on any of her albums.

http://sclors.tumblr.com/post/40897837779/give-me-more-of-everything-stina-nordenstam-i

still feel like this is one of the best songs recorded by anyone ever

the way her voice cracks on "have no favorites at all" is pretty much perfect

well, she's still alive

(but there's no mention of a new album in the works, so I apologize for getting anyone's hopes up)

literally the other day I was telling someone I was afraid she'd just quit music altogether so this is encouraging

must be autumn again

also that

(but an interview is about 1000x more than "uh, we heard this snippet of this song in a Crystal Castles song" or w/e

Good to see that Stina has been selected as one of the 12 'music greats' to be included in the Swedish Music Hall of Fame'.

http://www.easybranches.eu/european-news/1577523.html

We're coming up on ten years since "The World Is Saved" was released? Crazy. I guess she has given up on music.

rare footage from her cocktail jazz days!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAkHBBP6nWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKR_BQ1v4E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKR_BQ1v4E

(I just hope the unauthorized release of these videos won't push her next album back another decade...)

oops, that third clip should be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orSZQ6VIE7g

amazing

she's fucking hypnotic

holy shit how had I not seen these

What's the context here? What kind of TV show is this?

The arrangements and sweetness of her voice reminds me of the first two Cardigans albums.

this is straight out of a David Lynch movie

what happened to her? she was so desperate, so lonely, so sad and now this! she has discovered jazz or did jazz discover her? amazing!

did i get the timing wrong? are all these cocktail jazz clips from before her solo releases? in that case the evolution of her music is not so surprising really.

"there has always been an element of jazz blues to my music"

Can anyone recommend something that sounds like Dynamite? Obviously there is a lot of stark post-punk that has a similar texture but is there anything so introverted and so industrial-sounding yet fragile?

The clips are from 1989, by the looks of it. She's 20 there.

Memories of a Colour was still pretty jazz-pop in parts.

Dynamite has such a unique vibe to it, especially the longer tracks toward the end which set up that kind of lugubrious pummeling vibe ("CQD", "Down Desire Avenue").

Can anyone recommend something that sounds like Dynamite? Obviously there is a lot of stark post-punk that has a similar texture but is there anything so introverted and so industrial-sounding yet fragile?

― boxedjoy, Tuesday, July 22, 2014 5:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hi, me to thread, first the copout: parts of This Is seem likely to have been intended for Dynamite, specifically "Welcome to Happiness" and "So Lee"; B-sides "The Thing About Fire" and "Walking Too Fast" are worth finding too.

as far as specific suggestions, possibly lisa germano on her quieter stuff; or this is possibly too loud/poppy for these purposes, but parts of the last ladyhawke album sort of get there: "The Quick and the Dead," "Cellophane," etc. it's easy to imagine them scaled back 10x to sound like dynamite would

chunks of both Memories of a Colour AND And She Closed Her Eyes get pretty jazz-blues

why can i not load these clips on the page??

Can anyone recommend something that sounds like Dynamite? Obviously there is a lot of stark post-punk that has a similar texture but is there anything so introverted and so industrial-sounding yet fragile?

the most sparse songs on the album basically sound like hugo largo w/ assorted found objects adding extra ambience. the non percussive, bass driven tracks in particular seem heavily indebted to HL, that's the closest reference point i can think of.

http://www.wearebeaconsound.com/shop/stina-nordenstam-the-world-is-saved

that's nice but where's a new album?

:(

A little part of my dies each time this thread is revived.

I know it's bad form to revive this thread, but I was listening to And She Closed Her Eyes again today and I had almost forgotten how utterly charming this album is.

"And I can't go on like this is not a way of telling you to be mine... Be mine."

Her songs still pop up on my iPod and they hold up very well. I've forgiven the chorus "On Falling" for sounding so much like "Sharon & Hope" because it's the better song.

I stumbled upon a hip hop song called "stina nordenstam" recently, but I remember it being forgettable.

you do realize you just killed a little part of yourself (xpost)

also me, you killed a little part of me

You know it's getting very hard… to go on now. But I pretend I want to.

Stina's perfect for the colder days.

Next week is the twenty year anniversary of Dynamite and I am counting on someone in this thread to have pitched a piece relating to it

Stina always makes me pitch a piece.

(Sorry.)

Next week is the twenty year anniversary of Dynamite and I am counting on someone in this thread to have pitched a piece relating to it

― boxedjoy, Wednesday, September 7, 2016 8:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadly I have given up on people loving what I love

katherine I actually assumed you would have something in the works for this

believe me, if I thought I could successfully pitch it I would, but generally no one gives a shit about reissues that aren't already part of the canon

(s/reissues/anniversaries, though The World Is Saved sure didn't get much fanfare when it was re-released earlier)