Susanna ★★★★
★★★★
Meditations On Love
SUSANNASONATA. CD/LP/DL
Norwegian singer’s fervid exploration of matters of the heart.
Susanna Wallumrød sings “There is a heart longing to be free” during Meditations On Love’s second track Big Dreams. Next, in Leave Behind, she asks “Will there be love/Will there be trust?”, and refers to “A man gone astray.” Her voice is anguished, cracked. The emotional disruption seemingly central to her first collection of all-new, self-composed songs since 2016’s Triangle has, accordingly, caused her to reconfigure her music. The solo-with-a-piano directness is gone. So has the twinkling otherness of Susanna And The Magical Orchestra. While Meditations On Love’s Kieron Tyler 10 songs are bound together by her voice and the lyrical continuity, there are dives into jazzy impressionism, intense balladry and gothic-style haziness. Pearls Before Swine embracing Laura Nyro encapsulates it. Assembling musicians from the electronica, folk and jazz spheres to frame her disquisitions, she has fashioned a disquieting, gripping artefact.