Solblomma (Sweden) – Jasmine (single/track from the released album Alla var där)

Welcome back to the ultra surreal world of Solblomma where nothing is what it seems. ‘Jasmine’ is the latest single from her album ‘Alla var där’ (‘Everyone was there’) which was released in August without us knowing but the singles they keep a-flowin’ – and I’m a poet and I didn’t know it.

We’ve already featured ‘Eugen’, Mats’, and ‘Torkel’; each of them characters from the album and each with their own little mystical and often unfathomable story to tell.

There is an image for ‘Jasmine’ but it’s in Solblomma’s traditional caricature style and she looks like a flotilla member who’s just woken up from a night on the tiles with Greta.

She’s clearly going through some sort of rite-of-passage as she describes her daily routine in the same manner as ‘Jesse’s Diets’ and ‘Fashion Tips’ from the 1990s British TV comedy series The Fast Show, for those old enough to remember it.

“This week I ‘ave mostly been eating Prozac” and “This season I shall be mostly wearing nipple clamps” are two of his catchphrases that I recall.

Not to be outdone, Jasmine’s opening gambit is “today I shall move around the centre, eat salad at a café, then take the subway have an old lady nearby”, whatever that means.

She’s certainly sure of herself, confident that “Tomorrow I’ll be truly done, full of wisdom and routine, not shy Jasmine, just steady and sure and polished like a machine”.

Having overcome her shyness it is then the case that “today I shall count the people buying cheese at Flanör then stand in the hallway with my phone like the others do I’ve got the window ajar and I’m calling to the neighbour that the weather is fine.”

Solblomma is so out of left field that I sometimes struggle for words to describe her seemingly nonsensical but actually quite pertinent and socially aware observation that you’ll appreciate far better if you just set your mind free, see off a bottle of wine and pop an E or two.

But tonight, while ‘Alla var där’, it also a case of alles klar. Solblomma is the character that was created for The Fast Show and then left on the cutting room floor by the Producer for being too far out even for that programme.

But if they bring it back (there are rumours) I want to see her up there in lights alongside the zany “Where’s me washboard?” Arthur Atkinson; Coughing Bob Fleming; Supermarket Checkout Girl; Professor Denzil Dexter of the University of Southern California; television football pundit Ron Manager; Louis Balfour of Jazz Club (“Nice!”); drunken judge Rowley Birkin QC; car salesman Swiss Toni (“Laying a carpet is like making love to a beautiful woman, you’ve got to take your time”); Paula Fisch the weather girl on Albanian TV Chanel 9 (“Scorchio!”) and all the other memorable characters.

And do you know what? Solblomma would steal the show.

What’s that you say? Oh, the music. Yet again she’s picked out a melancholy tune. The Swedes do it better than anyone and Solblomma does it better than any other Swede.

Find her on:

Website: https://solblomma.com/