FRIDA HYVÖNEN – until death comes

(CD/LP, secretly canadian)

Within the forever fascinating genre-construction of the female singer / songwriter there are currently only a few remarkable exceptions from the beautiful girl with guitar-modell dwelling in minor / major chord changes. And whenever there is such an exception they are usually first compared to Joni Mitchell and then cast off as too “artsy” and complicated. Which is wrong in many ways and probably nothing but an effect of male fear of strong female minds, but I am no psychologist to really be able to get deeply into this theory. But what I can say from the viewpoint of a music-listener, it is a fact that the exceptions to this formula are usually longer lasting and more relevant in hindsight than the long line of good looking girls with guitars strolling down the frontcovers of magazines, fashionable this week, forgotten the next one.

Playing the piano as basic instrument the main lazy journalist’s reference point for Frida Hyvonen should be Carole King, but then most people, even music interested, seem to be surprised that songs like “You make me feel like a natural woman”, “I feel the earth move”, “You’ve got a friend” and “where you lead” are from the same writer and that they are from the same album and that this album, “Tapestry” was the debut album of King. Most of them you’ll have to tell that the last songs of the one’s mentioned is the intro-song of “Gillmore Girls” and that’s when you get a few understanding “aahs” finally. It is a shame. Probably, I just had a bad bunch of refrences to talk to. Most of them even didn't know Rickie Lee Jones.

Most of the time the piano is the only company to Hyvönen’s singing, although there are a few layers added, echos and overdubs here and there, to expand the recording. Sometimes a lonely glockenspiel is heard in the back and then an even lonelier trumpet solo accentuates a song. But as the fabulous “You never got me right” that doesn’t mean this setup has to mean melancholy and ephemeral melodies, but can be used for an impressive punch of anger and aggression – something that scares the regular male music journalist off quicker than a press conference without a buffet. And however much strange or cubic the songs might sound to an ear unwilling to open itself, there is always at least one moment of pure bliss and beauty awaiting the listener. (And true, that is also the fact with a lot of songs by Joni Mitchell.) “Come another night” is the only musical exception with a full band arrangement including horns and drums and electric bass. And James Taylor would be more proud than anything of this song. But also “Valerie” is a more straightforward, wonderful song that would feel well on any decent radio station. I am just waiting for Hyvönen to appear on “Gilmore Girls” (as colleagues like Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and a few dozen others have already done.)

But it is the scope of emotions and atmospheres Hyvönen is able to conjure up in her songs that will strike you first. At times she is shy and fragile, then self-confident and pushy, next she brings out the little girl inside her falling in love for the first time only to turn into a wold-wise grown up the next moment. The second thing that will fascinate you is the depth of introspection of the songwriting.

So a song like “N.Y.” might start with the overused picture of snow falling in New York but “in silent houses quiet christmas trees stand wrapped in electricity” makes it clear that here is some deeper introspection than the usual Ally McBeal / Sex and the City – melancholia. And when the singer’s call for romance is underlined by the knowledge that “for this kind of hunger there is no word / this kind of rage doesn’t know how to make itself heard” it overtly clear that Hyvönen won’t dwell in simple black and white pictures or be satisfied with scratching the surface, but feels the need to get right down to what makes up an emotion with all its contradictions, dark edges and extremities.