Pitchfork

Norwegian chanteuse Susanna Carolina Wallumrød typically goes by her first name only. She just released her third album, Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos, her first record without covers (last year's Melody Mountain had nothing else) and also the first without the billing of the Magical Orchestra (though Morten Qvenild, the only member of the "orchestra", does appear on a few tracks). Deathprod, aka Helge Sten, produces.

Susanna's voice has a marked timbral similarity to Björk's, but that's as far as the comparison goes. Her phrasing is narcotic and sleepy-- she'd never let loose with a Björk-style shriek, unless maybe she hit her thumb with a hammer. With its plucked guitar and close-mic'd croon, "Home Recording" sounds at first like a confessional in the vein of Joni Mitchell's Blue. But as it unfolds, its extreme austerity and sense of isolation almost brings to mind the internally-focused private world of someone like Jandek. You can never imagine this song being sung in a crowded cabaret. It's so skeletal and airy it's hard to get a handle on, but "Home Recording" does posses a certain sense of mystery and disorientation. "Where do I go from here?", Susanna asks in the chorus, but the song's title provides the answer: to the tape machine.