Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 02:19:29 -0800 
      From: Jeff Keibel (redshift@INTERLOG.COM) 
      Subject: sTiNa nordensTam


STINA NORDENSTAM
"Dynamite"
Stockholm/east west
0630-15605-2
out now!

Released this week in my corner of the world (Toronto, Canada) and
already out in Europe is the new album from Stina Nordenstam.  It's
called "Dynamite" and can be found on Telegram Records Stockholm/east
west via Warner Music UK.

I first fell for the sounds of Stina on her second album from '94
entitled "And She Closed Her Eyes" (4509-93898-2, east west).  This
album really blew me away and songs like "Hopefully Yours" and the
beautiful "Something Nice" made me a fan for life.

Stina "sings" in a child-like almost whispering style which you either
love or hate; there's no middle ground.  But, I beg you to give her a
chance...

As displyed on her previous album, a song like "Something Nice", with
the harmonied Stina voices and the catch-you-off-guard freshness of the
song itself to her new album "Dynamite", with lush production featuring
electric guitar (by Stina) and orchestrated violins and cellos really
demonstrates just how unique and original she is.

On a song like "The Man With A Gun" (from "Dynamite"), Stina sings from
the point of view of a woman whose punishment for an unspeakable crime
has caught up with her.  It's not explained what she did but the song is
so bone-chillingly scary you KNOW it must have been pretty bad.  Or like
on "Dynamite", the album's title track, lyrics like "Forgetting you is
like breathing water/There's got to be a better way" ring true to me and
I'm sure to lots of you as well.

The 4AD connection is that the wonderful Stina almost may have been
signed to 4AD at one point.  While it's sad that Stina didn't set up
shop at 4AD, thankfully the folks at Warner Music UK welcomed her
willfully non-commercial sounds and have released her albums to the
world.

Stina is an example of what an a daring artist really is; she's unafraid
to be totally herself and create her own style.  I mean this in the best
possible way - after listening to Stina, it makes Red Atkins sound like
the definition of a commercially viable recording artist.

Like lisa Germano, Red House Painters and Dead Can Dance from among the
4AD roster as examples, Stina also follows no one but herself, almost as
if the current hot trends on the charts or the clubs we're oblivious to
her.  The passion for her music literaly oozes from Stina's albums.

Like with her past album's liner notes, there's precious little info in
the "Dynamite" booklet about the woman that is Stina, but I was able to
find this interesting article that came out around the time of her
previous album in 1994.  Hopefully this will give a little glimpse into
what she's about.  Keep in mind the story is two years old now but
otherwise still worth reading...

In the meantime, definitely check out Stina's new album called
"Dynamite" real soon.  It's no wonder why our Mr. Watts-Russell knew
about Stina... With "Dynamite", hopefully she'll get the attention she
deserves.

--

"Stina - and she closed her eyes"
by Andres Lokko.

Far, far front, almost next to me in the couch, lies Stina Nordenstam's
voice. Every movement her lips does, every time she breathes in or out,
every time the teeth graze the tongue they reach all the way to my
heart.

Every word, every syllable is directed only to me. It is so close. I
actually don't know when I last heard a voice that had managed to pin
itself to my subconscious before it almost had left the speakers.

SN - Everyone I worked with tried to persuade me that the song shouldn't
be as much in front as it does on the record. Everyone said that it
would sound strange when it ends up on the CD. But I insisted, says
Stina Nordenstam by the window-table at a cafe at Karlaplan. She got as
she wanted. She usually does. Simply because she's right.

The story about the 24-year old Stina from Fisksatra is no longer
important. There were reasons to tell it when she released her debut
album Memories of a Colour two years ago. There were reasons to tell it
then, since the record contained music and lyrics that had been written
during a long period of her life.

Stina Nordenstam's second album, And She Closed Her Eyes, is not a part
of that story. There are lines that are from then. But the whole is more
than just a new chapter, it's a completely new book with - so far -
unwritten pages.

SN - After the first record had been released, which was in November
1991, I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just felt really bad. It was
some kind of exhaustion, I guess. Mainly because I released songs that I
had kept for myself for so long. And I also got a jagged picture of
myself, due to things I read about me everywhere, that I was so fragile
and melancholy and so. But after a while it meant something that I
didn't quite understand.

During spring 1992 Klas Lundig - Stina's record label's boss and most
dedicated supporter - starts talking that she should go to London and
play.

SN - He was constantly talking about a record label that was called 4AD
and who were interested in me. I had no idea what it was about, but Klas
persuaded me to go there, she says.

Somewhere, on a airplane between Arlanda (Stockholm's airport) and
Heathrow, And She Closed Her Eyes started to take form. Then came a
period when Stina commuted between Stockholm and London. But the planned
co-oporation with 4AD finally ended and they had to start all over
again.

SN - The most important thing that came out from these trips were that I
came in contact with a lot of music that I hadn't heard before. Not
least some things from 4AD.

And, quite right, she brought Red House Painters second album - with
Katy Song set on repeat - to the photoshoot for POP and during the walk
to the cafe a couple of blocks away, she talked herself warm for This
Mortal Coil.

SN - Sometimes, at least for very short moments, I can still get sad
that the cooperation didn't happen, she says after a while.

I don't think that 4AD realised what they were missing. But then they
hadn't heard And She Closed Her Eyes.

Long, long after the debut album was released in Sweden, it came out in
both England, Japan and USA. The critique was brilliant. But, after
hearing the follow-up album, the debut feels conventional. The earlier
take-off in Rickie Lee Jones, jazz and Stina's own fairy- tale tinted
stories on reality has been replaced by a number of musical references.
There is still jazz somewhere in the core of things. But it isn't the
academical school-jazz. The only thing that really remains is the jazz
feeling for melancholy. The title song is partly accompanied by rain
alone, which says quite a bit about the feeling the listener falls in.

SN - That very song was written and recorded when everything else was
finished. The record was completely finished, mixed and done. I just sat
in a corner of the studio and recorded it. It felt really good. Besides,
it was a good title on the album. It has a very open meaning. There are
like three dots before and after and you can place it in any context.

What's it about ?

SN - It's about a couple that are sitting in an open-air restaurant, he
is much older than she is, they don't really know each other that well
and they are seeing each other for the first time in a very long time.
That her face gets wet when they meet can be because it is raining or
she is crying. When it is raining in the song, they sit silent. They
don't have very much to say to each other. They have a silent agreement
that she must not fall in love with him. When she says that she has had
to struggle not to fall in love with him, he changes his mind. She
doesn't answer him. He loses his guarded style and is about to lose
control. Simply because she seems disconcerned.

It sounds like the synopsis to a French movie when she tells it. It
sounds like it could be about someone else. But when you hear the
record, when Stina's voice in just a few seconds has crawled into your
sub-conscious, it is all about yourself. Just like all pop music should
be.

SN - When I started to record I only knew that I didn't want to work
with Johan Ekelund again. For a while I was considering Talk Talk's
producer. Because I've thought that I one day would like to work with a
producer that has very strong visions, it worked excellent on Suzanne
Vega's latest.

Finally she decided to work with Erik Holmberg, who she met when she
appeared on Dive's album, almost two years ago.

SN - He seemed to understand what I wanted to do. But I liked him mostly
because he was so young.

Stina Nordenstam is 24 years old. She is still very short and is very
pleased with her album.

SN - Jon Hassell is on the record. It's one of very few known guests. He
received a lot of money and appeared only on one song. He showed up in a
very weird cowboy-outfit. Popsicle is on a few tracks and Andreas sings
on So This Is Goodbye. I love his voice. It's so personal. The rest of
the band plays of a few songs as well. Those who I had around me at that
time probably didn't quite realise how good Popsicle is. But I felt that
they were so fucking good myself, that I didn't care if anyone else
thought that they were grumpy.

Stina does as she wants.

When the Swedish people consumes Rebecka Tornqvist breakfast-tv jazz,
Stina Nordenstam's more personal, slightly eccentric, songs and her
melancholy vision feels incredibly important. The only artist that I can
think of that fits in her idea-world is Icelandic singer Bjork who's
album Debut was chosen as the best of 1993 by POP.

And She Closed Her Eyes is even better. I promise.

SN - I think that everything is about making it as clear as possible.
Sometimes you can spend ages trimming details. And then some things
disappear. But some songs on And She Closed Her Eyes felt right after
recorded like... perfect. There it was! But that doesn't mean that I
can't allow myself to be subtle. So I am convinced that many of those
who
listen to the record will misunderstand me anyway. So This Is Goodbye is
one of the songs that felt completely perfect when I heard the result
for the first time, and I imagine that the girls that listen to it will
think of it as very sad and maybe even a bit angry. It's also a song
that cannot be misinterpreted.

When I ask Stina to talk about the lyrics of the album, she has
problems.

SN - I have a strong resentment of hanging myself out like that. But I
think that's rather understandable. If you're a depressive person, you
don't sit and laugh at jokes. Just like it feels right now, that I have
to make up half-lies to talk about the lyrics.

She tries anyway.

SN - When Debbie's Back From Texas is about a person that I don't want
to talk about. Anyway, Debbie is an Englishman's ex-wife who comes from
Texas. And he imagines that when she gets back to England, life will
return to the shape it had before. But he really doesn't want that to
happen. The story is fictitious. And not self- lived. The places and the
names are true. Now I can't say anything more about that.

View From a Spire ?

SN - It's about a young woman who has died somewhere in town. There's a
possessed love story somewhere in the background. Most of my lyrical
ideas has in a way a true background. Even this one.

Crimes ?

SN - Love again. I don't want to say anything more.

Fireworks ?

SN - A pure unhappy love story.

Little Star ?

SN - A suicide with a confession in Latin performed by a boy's choir. It
will be released as asingle.

But then it is finished. The rest of the songs are left unspoken for.

SN - I think, contrary to the most, that lyrics are more personal in
English. I could probably not get as much said if I sang in Swedish. Now
I'm forced to concentrate on the story this way. I think the result will
be more obvious this way.

Another reason for the English is a certain disinterest in Sweden. Not
that she plans to conquer the world. It's just so.

SN - I have much easier to relate to things that happen outside Sweden.
Everything you experience outside Sweden is so peeled off, you're just a
character. No matter what you do or what happens, you'll be rid of
prejudicial opinions. It was someone who once wondered if I had any need
to obtain redress, that's why I wrote music. But that isn't true at all.
I have never had any need to impress or demand some kind of revenge on
those who I grew up with. No matter if it's about my parents, teachers
or old school friends.

SN - Creativity shall always come from some kind of suffering. It seems
to be some kind of rule that it's supposed to be that way. And I don't
understand it. I only know that I have a very strong need to express
myself. That's the strongest urge I have. I always have to explain what
I mean, what I want. If I argue with someone, I don't have to get that
person to agree with me. I only need to make him or her to understand.
That's enough. I'm scared if I can't get any order in my chaos. The
chaos has to be expressable.

She cares very little what kind of attention the record makes.

SN - There are very few people who's appreciation I really want. I mean,
what someone in USA thinks about it two years from now doesn't matter.
For me, the door was shut as soon as the record was finished. And now
it's too late. If you are truly happy with what you've done, it is not
until a very long time later that you start to care about what others
will think. Just when you've recorded a song and brings it on a tape and
listens to it in a walkman, that's enough. You love yourself right then
and that is actually enough. For some reason.

The comparison with Ricky Lee Jones, that has haunted her for years, is
a chapter that could be considered closed the same day that And She
Closed her Eyes reach the record shops.

SN - I think that an artist only has a certain lifespan to a listener.
There are exceptions, like Bowie and U2, artists that demand that the
audience must follow them when they insist on turning their music 360
degrees. But if you are talking about more personal music, there will
finally be a nostalgic shimmer around it, something familiar. And it can
never be like the first two-three albums with them that you loved.
Whatever they do, it will never get some new colours. You have to
somehow try to keep a certain naive feeling to that you liked very much
when you were younger. But when I listened to the new Rickey Lee Jones
album I was mostly glad that she existed, that she still was recording
music. And I played her version of Rebel Rebel eighteen times and
haven't played it since. I didn't play Pop Pop, her previous album, at
all. But then it came out when everybody was nagging me about sounding
like her.

And She Closed Her Eyes seems to have been written and recorded under
very concentrated forms, Stina seems to have turned off every other
potential source of influence.

SN - In a way. I have periods with differing needs and demands of
incoming and outgoing signals. When I read books I don't want to do
anything else at all. I have periods when I take in things and my own
language, my own expression is completely silent. When I think or read
it has to be very calm inside of me. The opposite are those periods when
I talk myself or record that I have written. At that time I am forced to
be extroverted.

Translation contributed by Jonas H.

Thanks to Hiro
and Marvyn for the Stina site...

Edited by
Jeff Keibel
Scarborough, ON
CANADA
redshift@interlog.com

Date:    Tue, 16 Jun 1998 16:22:34 -0700
From:    "C. Kemnitz" <cz@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject: Re: Stina

> And Stena Nordenstam, Virgin Records had a couple of her records as very =
> pricey imports, but my impression is that they might be worth the price. =
> Breathy vocals over very minimal instrumentation, perhaps cello and =
> percussion. I think she may have had a track on the Romeo and Juliet =
> soundtrack ("how'd they find this?" I remember thinking). Hand in hand =
> with the Hollis stuff, really.
>
> Is this the consistant flavor of her work, or does she do the snotty =
> rock-diva thing and get obnoxious too?

Stina's first two albums, Memories of a Colour and And She Closed Her
Eyes, used to be readily available in the States (Warner Bros, i think)
but you're lucky to find 'em nowadays.  These two do NOT "rawk."  They are
both wonderful in subtle ways (second album is more subtle).  Her third,
Dynamite!, is a pricey import-only and for that reason i haven't heard it
yet (though i'm planning to plunk down the dough soon before it goes out
of print).  But rumor was that it is louder.

-cz