Pitchfork

Photo by Linnea Helmersson

Swedish synth pop chanteuse Sally Shapiro has a sort of Disco Romance with Roger Gunnarsson of Swedish twee poppers Nixon. That crush becomes a sugar-frosted discopop plea on "Jackie Jackie (Spend This Winter With Me)", which adds winsome, Shangri-Las-esque spoken-word to the singer's Christmas stockingful of charming devices. To be released as a 12" on Austria's Klein label and as a bonus track on the Disco Romance U.S. release via Paper Bag, it's the first song written for Shapiro by Gunnarsson, whose Nixon tunes "Anorak Christmas" and "He Keeps Me Alive" she and producer Johan Agebjörn have already covered. And it's a good one.

"Jackie Jackie" isn't shy about playing up Shapiro's wintriness, opening with windy sound effects before getting caught up in isolated synth drifts, a Eurodisco bass line, and drum-machine pings. Nor is it anything but brazen about dramatizing Shapiro's enigmatic persona. She speaks softly, with simple diction: "How come I don't fall in love with normal people?/ And why don't normal people fall in love with me?/ I don't think that I'm strange/ Do you think I'm strange?" In context, though, such quintessentially Shapiro-like phrases comes off as totally natural.

'Cause the chorus, when it arrives with a regal synth-orchestral flourish, is gold, frankincense, and Fudgsicles. It's an invitation to come away for the winter, Jackie Jackie, or at least tonight, and Shapiro gives these childlike syllables more unabashed joy than can be heard in most of her typically melancholy catalog. One synth seems to quote the "I know you're my love" melody from Shapiro's "I'll Be By Your Side", and then there's a shift in key. The spoken, self-conscious verses keep a sense of nervous doubt lurking, but "Jackie Jackie" ends with another brightly anticipatory chorus, not shy anymore for a few months.

[from the U.S. version of Disco Romance; due 10/30/07 on Paper Bag]