Album Review: Menneskekollektivet by Lost Girls

Album: Menneskekollektivet
Artist: Lost Girls
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Label: Smalltown Supersound
Favorite Tracks:

• “Menneskekollektivet”
• “Carried by Invisible Bodies”
• “Love, Lovers”

Thoughts: This debut album from a Norwegian duo consisting of singer-songwriter Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden is one of the most remarkable things I’ve rested my ears on in some time.  It sounds like ambient music layered on Laurie Anderson avant-garde styles, layered on 90s techno, layered on 70s disco.  Maybe it won’t sound that way to you but the best way to describe it is as layered and rich.  The lyrics focus on feelings and capture emotions in their sound and repetition as much as in their words.  Their is a lot of improvisation and exploration in this music. I expect this will be on my favorite albums list at the end of 2021.

Rating: ****1/2

Podcasts of the Week Ending January 6

Hub History :: Annexation Making Boston Bigger for 150 Years

Boston grew first by making new land in Back Bay and the South End.  Then it grew even more starting 150 years ago by adding surrounding communities of Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton, West Roxbury, and Charlestown.  Find out how it all happened in this podcast.

Hang Up and Listen :: The 200 Seventh Graders Versus LeBron Edition

A whimsical year-end look at some sports conundrums such as how many seventh graders would you have to put on the court to defeat LeBron James playing solo.  Or, what would a NFL field or NBA court be like if they were built with the irregularities common in baseball stadiums.

Have You Heard :: Segrenomics

The long sad story of how inequality and segregation in education have long been the source of profit in the United States.

Slate’s Hit Parade :: The Silver Medalists Edition

A look back at some of the great songs that peaked at #2 on the pop charts with a special focus on “Shop Around” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, “We Got the Beat” by The Go-Gos, and “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson.

All Songs Considered :: Ice Music: Building Instruments Out of Water

Bob Boilen interviews Norwegian musician Terje Isungset who shapes and plays instruments out of ice.

Book Review: The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann

Around the World for a Good Book Selection for Norway
Author: Linn Ullmann
Title:The Cold Song
Translator: Barbara Haveland
Publication Info: New York : Other Press, c2011
Summary/Review:

This novel is a story about a family at seaside summer home and the young woman Milla who comes to work as their nanny, but goes missing and is later found murdered.  This is not a spoiler as Milla’s remains are discovered in the first pages of the book, but the manner of Milla’s demise is revealed over the extended flashback that makes up the bulk of the novel.  The rest of the cast includes Siri, the A-type restaurateur who hires Milla; Siri’s philandering husband Jon, a novelist struggling with writer’s block; their non-conforming 12-year-old daughter Alma; and Jenny, Siri’s 75-year-old mother who resents the massive birthday party that Siri forces upon her.  There’s a lot of tension in this novel as the characters navigate around one another, and while not a crime novel, the imminent crimes against Milla hang there over the whole story.

Favorite Passages:

Besides: Jon would never have used the expression “sell like hotcakes”—not only was it a cliché, it was also inaccurate. Hotcakes no longer sold like hotcakes. He had no statistics to back this up, but he was pretty sure that hotcakes fared poorly compared to smartphones or drafty houses in overpriced areas (like his own, for example) or antiaging creams.

Recommended books: Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, and Saturday by Ian McEwan
Rating: **1/2

Song of the Week: “White Foxes” by Susanne Sundfør

 

Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør presents some vocal acrobatics and unnerving key changes in the dark and moody tune of “White Foxes.”

I haven’t posted a song of the week for a while, because I’ve not heard anything that really struck me.  Tell me what I’ve been missing and what should be the next song of the week!

Photopost: Tall Ships in Boston

OpSail Boston and Boston Navy Week bring lots and lots of tall ships to the port of Boston. I took the kids to see a few of them yesterday at the Fish Pier and Charlestown Navy Yard.

Brazil’s Cisne Branco at the Fish Pier.

Pleasure boats loop around the dock to enjoy viewing the tall ships.

Mast of the Cisne Branco.

Mast of the USCG Barque Eagle.

USS Cassin Young in the dry dock at Charlestown Navy Yard.

The deck of the USCGC Juniper with the HNOMS Thor Heyerdahl and HDMS Esbern Snare in the distance.

Norway’s HNOMS Thor Heyerdahl and Denmark’s HDMS Esbern Snare.

A buoy on the deck of USCGC Juniper.

A windshield wiper view from the bridge of the HDMS Esbern Snare.

Related Post: Sail Boston ’09

Book Review: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion by Johan Harstad

Author:  Johan Harstad
Title: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion
Publication Info:  New York : Seven Stories Press, c2011.
ISBN:  9781609801359
Summary/Review: This book from Norway, recently translated into English by Deborah Dawkin, is the latest book I’ve received free from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program and a book for my Around the World for a Good Book project.  The narrator/protagonist is a young man named Mattias who seems to be content with not standing out or being noticed for anything.  Hence his fascination with Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon.

After a long-time girlfriend leaves him, Mattias goes to the Faroes Islands with his friend’s band and suffers a mental breakdown.  He’s picked up by a psychiatrist who runs a sort of halfway house for people with mental and emotional problems trying to ease back into society.   Mattias moves in and over the next couple of years details his new life on the Faroes.  Plot is secondary as the narrative is mainly an internal dialogue of a man coming to terms with his loneliness and depression.

Mattias is not always a sympathetic character but I relate to him a lot.  I like what Harstad is trying to do exploring the interior anguish of Mattias, but I have to admit that the book is overlong.  Still I recommend reading it, I find it reminiscent of the work of Haruki Murakami.

Favorite Passages:

“Friday.
One should beware of Fridays.
They promise so much.
Like movie trailers.
Only rarely do they live up to expectations.
Most Fridays are lousy sequels.
Back to the Future Part III.” – p. 43

“The brain is a strange contraption.  A library with a messy librarian.  And in the floors below, in the cellar, there are vaults, filled to the ceiling with books and journals, dissertations and papers that are scarcely ever asked for.”  – p. 181

Recommended Books: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, and The Museum Guard by Howard Norman.
Rating: