Dilba
Dilba
Strawberry Records / Warner Bros

Feeling lonely? Let Swedish/Kurdish song-bird Dilba keep you company.

When I first saw her, thoughts like "please, no, not another carbon-copied, plastic-soul, Stockholm suburban, concrete-child singer with obvious 'I want to be a hip pop star'-ambitions" went through my head.

But then I heard her sing, and I fell like a blind roofer! I was very wrong about her. The song was the fourth track on her album, called I'm Sorry. A beautiful song in which she realizes that her "dream was a lie and the lie became truth" and declares that "it's disgusting what dreams can do".

Her self-titled debut album is an impressive display of talent. The music is slow, black-and-white soul, but far from the bass intensive production of for example Mary J. Blige. Instead it has got a whole lot of jazz in it. (And for some reason I can't stop thinking about Heather Nova when I listen to the record, but maybe it's just me.)

The lyrics are excellent and in comparison with another Swedish female soul singer/song-writer, 17-year old Robyn, they make the latter's sound like the work of, well, a 17-year old kid. (We live in an unfair world, though, and Robyn recently appeared on national USA breakfast-TV with 20 million viewers. Oh well, one can only wish her good luck on her launch in the US.)

Dilba writes all of the songs herself, and plays the guitar. The album is produced by Eric Gadd and Klas Wikberg, veterans in Swedish soul-music. It is sparsely produced, and the songs rely mostly on Dilbas voice, strong melodies and a bunch of good musicians. That is definitely enough, though.

I most certainly hope that miss Dilba gets the same chances as her younger colleague, Robyn, does. She really deserves a major breakthrough, and if 20 million americans heard her sing while eating breakfast, I bet a whole lot of them would listen a little bit extra.

Copyright © 1997 Erik Starck