From avant-garde jazz to a Velvet Underground cover by a 20-year old Swedish girl, to intelligent pop, to hard rock and now to Americana, all in five days. You get the Full Monty in NMC. Accept no substitute!
Tonight it’s the turn of Norway’s Malin Pettersen, whom I do not believe to have featured here previously, with ‘Number and a street’, from the forthcoming and self-produced album ‘Wildflower’ , which is being billed as “a summary of Pettersen’s solo career so far – all the knowledge, experience and not least the musical weight that she has built up.”
She is also regarded as Norway’s leading Americana artist. Cripes! I need to raise my game tonight.
Essentially, ‘Number and a street’ is a song about songs. And what you get from them, or don’t, as the case may be.
She mentions her attraction to songs she remembers from her childhood in the 90s and how they described people’s everyday lives and their stories. (And for what it’s worth I agree, there did seem to be a greater degree of personal meaning in songs back in the day and well before that, too).
And she talks about how sometimes you only got a glimpse of events that were part of a bigger story. The best example of that for me would be the hit single from a concept album which had a great tune but within which the lyrics were meaningless without reference to other tracks on the album.
So it would both open and close a door at the same time.
But it would certainly make you think.
She reels off a catalogue of top songs from that era as examples, like Suzanna Vega’s ‘Luka’, (isolation on the second floor); Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘Torn’ (emotional disconnection), and Sheryl Crow’s ‘If it makes you happy’ (the benefits of personality flaws).
Anyone asked to recall their top 10 songs from the 90s might well include some or all of those tracks and if you’re in that zone that’s the standard you will be judged against.
In her case she was sufficiently inspired by them to write a song about the concept of someone who was very close to you becoming a stranger; hence ‘Number and a street’ – that’s the best you can ever aspire to know about them now.
It is something many people can relate to – I know I can – and a concept that has appeared in more than one of my own favourite songs, for example Arcade Fire’s ‘Suburban War’, one I’ve mentioned before in these pages:
“With my old friends/I can remember when
You cut your hair/I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in/Could be distant stars
And I search for you/In every passing car”.
Those lines come from the best track on a Grammy winning album and judging from this song Malin should be in the same league, at least in Scandinavia.
Her range also includes pop, R&B and electronica and here she has crafted a 90s pop/country song with the best elements of both, flush with melody, with top level acoustic instrumentation, and lived-in lyrics as she ponders what she would say if they ever met again at this obscure address, naturally on the second floor, in a subtle nod to Suzanne Vega.
Just like the song itself an encounter would be just a couple of minutes of the day, briefly passing and disappearing into the ether.
Find her on:
Website: https://malinpettersenofficial.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MalinPettersenOfficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malinpettersenmusic/
