Sweden / Finland - Full Moon 229 - 05/04/15

Anna Järvinen
Buren
Diesel Music / Playground

Back in March we had a close encounter with the first part of Anna's fourth album Buren, an EP of five songs released the previous moonth. By then the rest of the album was expected by late March. It turned out to be the second half of April before it arrived. I'd expected a second EP, but it only seems available as a full-length ten track album now, with half the album being the songs from the February release. A shame for those who bought the physical EP, or maybe it was only available non-physically in the first place?

The most unexpected offer here is the opening track called "Dünn Wie Papier" (German for Thin As Paper, I guess), the lyrics spoken over wordless chanting and a little bit of piano. The words seems to be the lyrics of "Stockholm" from the EP translated into German. A puzzling matter is that "Stockholm" has been renamed "Till Dig Nu" (To You Now) on the album version. Anyway, "Dünn Wie Papier" is a fascinating experiment, but seems like a strange opening number. It doesn't give a clue about the rest of the album and doesn't fit with any of the other nine tracks apart from the lyrics. "Skolgården" (Schoolyard) and "Kraften" (The Force or Power) are the full band songs with bass, drums and all. The former has a prominent electric guitar the rock way; the second a nice trombone (or brass-sounding keyboards?) hidden a bit in the background and a harmonica solo that reminds of Springsteen og Neil Young on a good day. "Var Inte Rädd" (Don't Be Afraid) is back to the singer-songwriter format with a sad cello, acoustic guitar and rolling waves behind Anna's voice. My favourite of the Buren part 2 songs. Here's also the piano song "Om Ändå" (If Only); halfway sad and spinechilling.

Despite some minor complaints, Buren, the complete album, confirms Anna Järvinen as a leading lady within Nordic, mainly melancholic and introspective music.

Copyright © 2015 JP