Stina Nordenstam

Dynamite is great, though. The combination of Stina's eerie vocals with such gritty, menacing arrangements (think post-punk similar to P.I.L.'s second album, but with most of the dub replaced by industrial found sound, subtle beats and shrill string quartets, and all slowed down to funeral procession speed) is fantastically chilling. Due to this thread I'm listening to it again, and bloody hell it's great.

Her lyrics and stories are excellently blunt and bloodless too - her indifference when she sings "I'll only smile the night I meet the man with the gun" is more goth than just about anything. (goth as a compliment, all you GOFF-HATAXoRs)

As for the earlier jazz-pop, leave it until after Dynamite - a lot of it is very good, but I don't know if I would have liked it if I wasn't already attuned to Stina. I haven't heard much of the new album, but I have a strange feeling that it will be much like Dynamite but less scary and/or compelling.

Should you like her stuff? No should about it, just try some audiogalaxied tunes, I'm betting Little Star will be top of the "sort by popularity" list and it's no bad start. I don't really know what sort of stuff you like yet, Gareth. If you hate winsome gurly voiced vocals, then you'll hate it. If you like melodic, jazz/bluesy, often riotous sounds then try it out. There's quite a range of sounds to her albums so at least *I* don't find her samey.

I personally care little for her very first album. New one hasn't really hooked me in yet, which Dynamite did eventually and And She Closed Her Eyes... did immediately.

On topic, another vote for People are Strange and And She Closed Her Eyes. I didn't love her last album but I didn't sell it back so it's sitting around waiting to be re-evaluated.

I have no idea what it's called, though.

Vangelis & Stina Nordenstam - "Ask the Mountains"
from the album Voices (Atlantic, 1996)

And Yello's "To the Sea" is also on Danny Tenaglia's Back to Mine mix. Like bob snoom sez, it's good stuff.

Haven't heard the new one mind. People Are Strange is good in places but lacking in, um, songs.

Memories is passable, some good points, but not something i'm that strong on. The latest has yet to hook me at all.

Kyle, add this to the long list of things I want to burn off of you NOW!!!

But yeah, I can't wait for October 11th.....

Also, there is rumored to be an internet radio broadcast of the album in September on www.seekyoudanger.com

"This is" leans more towards pop and lo-fi then most of her work, but it's still really lovely.

Apparently the new album brings back some of the jazzier elements of her first albums.

ooooh... i've always been a huge fan of and she closed her eyes, so i hope this is a good thing.

OH
YES

What does she sound like now? Is it really her metal album? mmm...

this is a request from the swedish singer stina nordenstam.

i am working on new material for my 7th album and want alien contribution. i want strangers to send loops, bits and pieces of non-musical sounds, documentary, everyday sounds - as well as beats. naturally it is potentially more interesting with sounds i can't associate to. the other thing i will be looking for is how the loops are constructed, put together. i don't want to be too specific as a lot of time the best is in the unexpected. so, i am not asking for any particular style. i want things out of the ordinary, with character, inspiring. in any way. i don't want songs. i don't want harmonies. i want construction pieces.

stina nordenstam

A friend of mine hooked me up with an album track as well and it's amazing.

Wow it's eight years since Dynamite. That was a fucking formative record for me in retrospect.

On another note, Stina is one of the few artists where I often have to emotionally prepare myself to listen to.

When I visited the UK about seven years ago, this was one of the things I specifically searched out (The Vulgar Boatmen's Opposite Sex being the other). I have listened to it once, maybe twice the whole way through. If I didn't go all that way for it, I'd have sold it a long time ago. Personally, I think it lacks the production that made her next one so special. The songs are kinda, eh. Download it.

and she closed her eyes

it took me a long time to warm to This is; I was disappointed when it came out, but when I went back to it a year later with fresh ears I found more to like. It's much more pop in many ways. I didn't even realize until yesterday that was Brett Anderson on it.

(the other one is now taken down)

Thanks

I'm tempted to hear the new album now, but I'm going to wait until I buy it. I'm going to buy it, regardless, but I've realized how unhappy I am when all the albums I want to buy I've already heard. There's just no excitement in that. I trust, of course, that I'll be able to find the album when it's out... maybe I'll just bring my Stina list to Scratch and get them to order everything.

http://www.v2music.com/site/audioVideo.asp?avType=11

(scroll down to "S")

The combo of "From Caymen Islands With Love" and "The Morning Belongs To The Night" is particularly affecting.

The arrangements on the album are spectacular, clearly the best in her career so far. The string quartet pieces are definitely one of the main attractions for me, it's almost as if she is reinventing "Dynamite" in neoclassical form.

Derrick it is on Stina's own label, and is being distributed by V2 in Europe. No North American release planned as far as I know.

"The arrangements on the album are spectacular, clearly the best in her career so far. The string quartet pieces are definitely one of the main attractions for me, it's almost as if she is reinventing "Dynamite" in neoclassical form. "

What I find interesting is that despite this reinvention it still sounds a lot like Dynamite (only without such an explicit post-punk vibe) or a more melodic, big budget version of People Are Strange - you'd think that with such a strong string quartet presence and so many jazz affectations the music would sound much closer to, say, the fuller pieces on And She Closed Her Eyes, but i think in the last ten years Stina's honed her arranging skills into such a distinct and purposeful weapon that she now rarely if ever sounds like she's performing in a particular style or genre.

Also, the press release says this is an upbeat record but in truth it is, as one would expect from Stina, a deliciously melancholy affair.

Dynamite did this too, for all its grinding, and my favourite tracks on that album are similarly the ones that feel like they could go on forever - the title track, "Almost A Smile', "CQD", "Down Desire Avenue". Listening to that album agian, what leaps out at me right now is how the guitar is actually rarely particularly physical, for all its buzziness: it's the grain and the texture of that dirty guitar sound that Stina's focused on. The guitar is actually the most "soundscape" like aspect of the music, allowing the strings and the slow-groove rhythms to give the songs body and momentum. I think this is part of what makes them sound so compelling - the songs sound like they've been sculpted out of raw material, rough-hewn rock. The World Is Saved shares that feel, although it's softer, perhaps earth and clay.

That's exactly why I feel Dynamite is the more pertinent comparison for The World Is Saved, even though it's soft-focus and easy on the ear like This Is...: most of the time, when the melody and the voice and the instruments all gel, there's a real sense of musical unity, whereas with This Is... youwere always aware of the disparate components to each song. Which I suppose goes back to what you were saying about Stina's arrangement skillz - I can't remember if she produced Dynamite or not? Even the most This Is...-esque song on The World Is Saved, "Butterfly", sounds very natural, while the best songs - "Parliament Square", "From Cayman Islands With Love" just take that to another level.

I actually expected This Is... to be more pop than it turned out to be (as I only got it about a month ago, if that) - "Lori Glory" is a big exception obviously.

Yeah "On Falling" is marvellous, although I think I probably adore everything except the last track (and even then I like it).

I think The World Is Saved will actually help me fall in love properly with This Is - I think my first few listens to the latter were fringed with nervousness that Stina seemed to be moving away definitively from the things I loved in her earlier work, whereas now I can appreciate it for what it is.

Stina's the indie hangover from my pre-pop days!

Oh, you have to hear And She Closed Her Eyes. If you find "Lory Glory" unusual wait till you hear her do upbeat love songs! "Hopefully Yours" and "Something Nice" - both really beautiful. It's a gorgeous record actually, a bit jazzy and folky but not as slight and genre-bound as Memories of a Colour. I can understand why it's a lot of people's favourite. The hushed harmonies in "When Debbie's Back From Texas" alone are enough to die for.

I just listened to This Is and it sounded solidly great for the first time. I like it when ILX can change my reactions like that.

Stina's delivery of her lyrics has always been exquisite - possibly something to do with the natural pitch of her voice being one which is more normally associated with drama and high emotion, but the timbre being very deadpan and low-key. I can't think of anyone else who does deadpan in such a high pitch.

Speaking of vaguely elfin-sounding divas: has Anja Garbarek done anything since Smiling and Waving?

"The World Is Saved" too, but I suspect "Dynamite" first and foremost.

Who else is making records remotely like these people?

And he raises a good question - who is making records even remotely like Dynamite et. al.?

No North American release planned as far as I know.

*grousegripe*

Dynamite is the one other album of hers I still don't have, I think.

Good lord no. (Had I ever fallen to an eBay addiction, I would be in a sorry state.)

Honestly I had no idea this was Brett Anderson until you told me. I still barely notice him on those two tracks. "Everyone else in the world" is easily one of her best song.

I have a bit of a soft spot for "This Is", because it was my first Stina record, but it does seem a bit too self-conscious in places. I have a feeling the bsides were kicked off the album because they were over 3 minutes long. I do love how the cheap MIDI saxophone riff on "Lori Glory" is nearly morphed into something meaningful by Stina's downtrodden vocals. The same transformation happens with the cheap synthesized acoustic guitars on Michael Mayer's "Slowflood" (although that is more due to the arrangement).

"This is" also has Brett Anderson sounding more dignified than 90% of his material post-Dog Man Star.

"And She Closed Her Eyes" and "Dynamite" are two of my favorite albums from the 90s.

B-sides? I didn't even know there were singles! What are the b-sides like?

I went back to This Is... and Dynamite last night and fuck me, they're both superb.

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.

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.

well, which is more accurate?

I used to love Dynamite a lot, and it really hit me hard in, oh, 1999 or so when I first found it. Since getting into TWIS, I'm less enamoured, somehow. Maybe it's just less striking now. It's still a phenomenal album, just less monolithic, I guess.

re: vocals, yeah, it's a constant understatement. she's developed it over time, too; Memories of a Colour, while still nowhere near the operatic grandstanding Bjork is famous for, is much more conventionally expressive. She's become more deadpan with each album since, I think, and it's worked better and better, maybe less so on This Is....

The new(ish) album is fantastic. That is all.

Great reading.

It's a shame all of her records aren't released in the States. Really an underrated artist of the last 15 years. Everyone I've ever played her for has liked her--and non-music-freaks like my sisters recognise her from the 'Romeo + Juliet' soundtrack, apparently, and like her, too.

xpost

note cold snap in england.

It was 18 C here on Wednesday, it's been unusually mild for this time of year.

I think this is her most underrated album, and from time to time I think of it as her best. "Reason to Believe" and "I Dream of Jeannie" are two of the most gorgeous things she's ever produced. It's a less fragile record than And she closed her eyes and seems better-constructed than Dynamite. And few albums can touch it for sheer imaginative deconstruction of other people's songs.

And she closed her eyes
Another Story Girl
Clothe Yourself for the Wind
Crime
Dynamite
First Day in Spring
Get On With Your Life
Greetings from the Old World
His Song (...or at least the first 2:00)
I Dream of Jeannie
Keen Yellow Planet
Little Star
Memories of a Color
Murder in Mairyland Park
Now When I See You
People Are Strange
Proposal
Purple Rain
Reason to Believe
So Lee
Stations
Trainsurfing
When Debbie's Back from Texas
Winter Killing

Completely!

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

Yeah, I'll go with that. Even better that today is gray here (it's been mostly sunny all week).

...Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. Apparently an old folk song...
Ain't exactly a folk song, allegedly. According to olden chronicles, 'twas written by one Stephen Foster (1826-1864), author of also "Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks At Home" and other popular faves of yore.

Remix of "Wonderful World" duet & "Birds Sing For Their Lives" is Stina solo. Very elegiac, reminds me slightly of Murcof.

I'd love to see her collaborate with The Knife. Hmm. . .

The Knife remix of "Parliament Square" is basically a collab.

seriously, 'the world is saved' is a total gem. the sort of record i can really sink my teeth into. static and restrained with something really penetrating beneath the surface. is serving as a nice companion record to joy division's 'closer' for me these last weeks.

i find it difficult to imagine people having trouble listening to her albums from start to finish. for me they establish an arresting mood very quickly and don't let go from there. they sustain a constant mood for certain, but i think that's pivotal to keeping things measured and compelling throughout.

Where's another album already.

Ha I was hoping this revive would be announcing such news...

Ditto ...

OK, my turn here... Hadn't heard a single thing she's done until The World Is Saved finally arrived at the top of my unlistened stack. WTF was my probably in waiting so long...

WTF was my problem I mean

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)

(feel free to insert "have you considered that the problem is you," also)

I was listening to ‘Dynamite’ again this morning after recommending it to Brad, and it occurred to me that - what with the songs’ persistent themes of acceptance of, and identification with, externally (and at times randomly) imposed violence, loss and fear - a good alternate title for the album would have been ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

It would have made me lol (with dread) at any rate.

will she ever do anything again? has she done anything since Nine Horses?

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

:(

http://desireavenue.free.fr/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=3

^the saddest message board on the internet. every couple of months, one of about 4 active posters will start a new thread along the lines of, "UPDATE: she doesn't have a new album out, but I found this cool promo on eBay with an UNCROPPED version of the ASCHE cover photo!" and the other 3 posters will go, "that's nice, dear, but where on earth has our queen disappeared to!?"—and you get the impression that all of them have had Stina on Google alert for the past decade and that they die a little each time her name pops up without the promise of a new release

now i have 'stina / tell me have you seen her?' going round my head in loop

lol

(there are no Stinaupdates, sorry. but it's Stinaseason again)

The 00s poll has sent me scurrying back to, and has massively reignited my enthusiasm for, This is Stina Nordenstam (which wasn't nominated). I'd always gone along with the idea that The World is Saved was the apex of Stina - much more congruent than its predecessor and with more robust songwriting and arrangements, but This is now sounds like a much stranger/less earthbound record.

I'd forgotten the extent to which it was pitched as a big expensive pop move because it's so tiny a thing and seems to have left almost zero cultural footprint (unlike e.g. ASCHE). It was one of those albums by a slightly culty artist which was presumably designed to cross over but didn't any receive any tangible publicity push from (Sony?) so seemed to evaporate on contact with the world.

It got a full UK release but I never saw a copy of it until a load turned up in Fopp for £3 apiece circa 2009. All of the albums are on iTunes/Spotify now but for years and years they seemed to be just slightly out of reach.

The songs sound like she's extracted their internal supporting structures and left them out of the fridge to curdle but the whole thing bustles along really satisfyingly. There's barely time to get lost in the album because there is so little of it - it is glimpsed and then it's not there. On the cover she's spotlighted but shrouded in gloom; as always, you can barely make her out.

Brett sounds like a pitchshifted Stina = he sounds great/unobtrusive - def the best 00s record that he was involved with.

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

― boxedjoy, Monday, April 30, 2018 9:37 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

otherwise, yeah, it wouldn't necessarily seem so, but IMO this album has the most devastating songs of hers -- "everyone else in the world," "sharon and hope," "so lee" -- she really doesn't get enough credit as a trad singer-songwriter.

and yes the obvious counterpoint is "ok but dynamite exists," but that's more devastated. not sure how the track on here that is clearly a dynamite offcut fits the theory, but she does

Yes! Love Dynamite to bits but it keeps you at a remove whereas this one skips along pretty accessibly for the most part. It seems really at odds with itself in a way that neither Dynamite or TWIS are which is maybe more discomfiting for the listener. "The Diver" is the Dynamite offcut I guess?

I'm almost as preoccupied with the presentation of it. Just dug out my CD copy and it has a hyper-glossy booklet and a really unloveable typeface and generally feels like a really crisply efficient piece of product. and calling it This is Stina Nordenstam implies definitive artistic statement, but, it just oozes reluctance.

...and, YouTube provides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G06-Y1Wc6oE

(30 mins of Stina, circa 2001, on This is..., while wandering around arctic Stockholm)

The current era has me returning to 'Dynamite' a lot. Still have no recollection how I heard 'This Is' circa 2001, but after that obsessively sought out all her albums (didn't seem easy to find in the US back then). 'Dynamite' has remained on of my very favorite albums of the 90s--in that mystical realm with late Talk Talk or Mark Hollis' solo LP, or Bjork's 'Homogenic'--just music outside of time. I wish it were much better known/appreciated--I feel like if it came out now it would probably be better received, and would still sound completely fresh.

In penance for bumping the thread and getting folks hopes up (or, these days, fears up), a couple tracks I somehow never heard, despite being so in love with her music all these years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTyf-2HU9Ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgfT4pCV4kA

Also just since it's not posted in the thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKqH0Fk1_8

Personally, I think she comes across when there's some grit and gristle to wrestle with her childlike voice. But I love her in nearly any context.

Until reading the Martin Aston 4AD book a few years back, I had no idea that she'd been a mooted 4AD-signee circa 1991 - Ivo apparently decided that she'd be too challenging to work with! Does seem like she'd have been a good fit for 90s 4AD (whatever that means - "bit gothy and elusive" possibly).

Dynamite def feels like the most auteurish album - so much space in it; completely agree that it would probably find a more receptive audience if released today.

I wish it would at least get a reissue (and 1st US release), to give it the opportunity for critical reappraisal and exposure...

(Speaking of, look up the Allmusic review of 'Dynamite'--one of the worst, most off-base reviews of anything I've ever seen)

dynamite is one of those albums I think is perfect in theory, but in practice I am not often really in a place to listen to (probably a good thing). this track is the exception, kind of a bridge to the world is saved in the strings throughout, also probably one of my favorite love-songs-of-sorts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bN2GNXy4Nc

I'd never heard this Stina x The Knife:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-JuGewOvQY

x-post. Was there any context to the idea that she'd be too challenging to work with?

Strangely, I'd started making myself a compilation "for these times" and hadn't really got any further than a David Sylvian track and a Stina Nordenstam one.

Oh, cheers for posting that Knife remix Soundslike. Not sure how I missed that.

oh yeah that remix was how I first got into the knife

also speaking of david sylvian tracks, stina nordenstam tracks, and tracks "for these times"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga4IcaRsHic

Was there any context to the idea that she'd be too challenging to work with?

They'd initially offered to release Memories of a Color but after meeting with her, Ivo decided that a working relationship would be overly complicated - apparently her personality "mirrored her beguiling, obsessive music" and he wasn't in the frame of mind to engage with this at the time.

Ha, yes, Katherine - that was one of the few tracks on there.

re: Stina and Sylvian, I'm somehow convinced (with no proof whatsoever) she wrote "Greetings from the Old World" by way of a salute to him when he moved from England to America. I remember reading her generic explanation of the song on her Myspace site and adding (my) 2+2.

discovered her thanks to akm's mention in the cassandra jenkins thread and wow i love her first two albums, especially and then she closed her eyes. i really love all the sax, it feels like music i've been wanting to hear forever.

dynamite is intriguingly strange but hasn't quite clicked for me yet, it's quite a left turn but i'm hoping it will open up to me. it feels sonically of a piece with from the choirgirl hotel, but pushed further into that realm in a way that tori never did. the contrast between her quiet, deadpan vocals and the kinda industrial/post-punk backing is fascinating

looking forward to checking out the rest of her output

The first two Stinas are def the most aligned with the Cassandra Jenkins record (which is completely great), insofar as they have more light and warmth in them than her later albums - the 'sound' of early spring, watery tentative sunshine, lengthening days etc. Really brisk and fresh.

The subsequent Stinas all feel really bound up with autumn/winter to me, to varying extents - all are great but it's a much chillier vibe overall. Dynamite is the one that leans most into 'encroaching gloom'. FTCH is a really interesting comparison and one that hadn't occurred to me before.

I disappeared down a bit of a This is Stina Nordenstam wormhole upthread but I do still think it's her strangest record in that it tries to make a big (tiny) crossover pop record out of a fuzzier version of the Dynamite sonic palette and ends up sounding like some kind of plaintive alien bulletin or... something.

I think the World Is Saved is her best album. I wish she'd return to recording.

God I love 'Dynamite' so much. Dig 'This Is' and 'People Are Strange' and 'The World is Saved' and the rest. But 'Dynamite' stands out, for me. Such an elemental sound--those crunchy guitars paired with the Reich-ian strings, and her voice... An album that hasn't aged a day.

I'm afraid she's going to go the way of Mark Hollis--silent until silenced.

I feel like there's a big jump in skill and quality between albums one and two - And She Closed Her Eyes really codifies some qualities that define her subsequent work despite the massive stylistic shifts.

Like, the voice is the same but from the first line of "When Debbie's Back From Texas" you can hear how much more aware and deliberate her use of it is - this Rickie Lee Jones in an iron lung quality, superficially blank and stripped (or evacuated) of affect, yet perversely affecting. A quality that extends to her suddenly incredibly sharp lyrical economy, conveying entire worlds and personas with the smallest number of words possible.

"From Cayman Islands With Love" from The World Is Saved is a great example of this:

Half a day behind and miles away
I'm on a beach
The only one around I know who can't
Enjoy the heat
I bought the postcard
Now I have to write the words
I left the country
There's a chance you may have heard
Grand Cayman is great
Of course it is
Weather like this
Living is great
Of course it is
What else did you think
What else did you think
I said I want a man and not a boy
You left the room
The Caribbean sun so leaves me cold
You never do
I want to see you
Even want to see you bleed
I can't believe I paid for this
There's nothing here I need
Grand Cayman is great
Of course it is
Weather like this?
Living is great
Of course it is
What else did you think
What else did you think

... The deliberateness emptiness of "weather like this?"... I love it.

... That said, the last two tracks of Memories of a Colour are the best on the album, so if you listen to the first albums back to back it's like Stina is gearing herself up.

I bought "And She Closed Her Eyes" in 1994 when I was in high school - I think I bought "Park Life" (!) in the same haul. Mark Radcliffe had been playing "Little Star" every night on his Radio 1 late show.

Anyway, it's just the most beautiful record - I think it might be favourite ever album, the only album I've never gotten bored of listening to. I used to put in on with "Five Lives Left".

I can't believe The World is Saved was released 16 years ago. And look at idiot me above, thinking ten years was a long time.

This Is is getting a vinyl reissue in June: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-us/product/stina-nordenstam/this-is-stina-nordenstam

Has she gone completely reclusive? Retired? Does anyone know?

Lol this revive is going to get Tim F's hopes up once again ;_;

This thread contains evidence of me being startled at the passage of time in general terms at about the time The World Is Saved was released.

It’s been almost 20 years since then.