A Trio of European Indie Pop Chanteuses
For today's blog post I'm showcasing a talented trio of female singer songwriters who have enjoyed some measure of success in Europe but remain largely unknown to American audiences. I've collected all of their American album release & spent a lot of time listening to their respective releases over the past month or two.
Sophie Hunger
Sophie Hunger is a Zurich based musician who's creating a great deal of buzz in Europe but has yet to make inroads in the USA despite the 2010 release of an excellent (and mostly English language album), entitled
1983. If you like French pop chanteuses like Charlotte Gainsbourg & Francoiz Breut or the sultry vocal style of Beth Gibbons of the trip-hop ensemble Portishead, you'll probably like Sophie Hunger's music.
Her full-length solo album debut, Sketches on Sea (2006), was a home-recorded effort that steadily became an underground sensation. It helped, of course, that Hunger was an engaging live performer. Her renown as a live performer led to an appearance at the 2008 Montreux Jazz Festival, among other high-profile appearances.
Sophie Hunger- Le Vent Nous Portera, from the 2010 album 1983.
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Vashti Bunyan
In the mid 1960s Vashti Bunyan was an aspiring British folk singer who fell into the orbit of Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and she was groomed to be a folk/pop singer in the mode of two other Oldham protégées, Nico & Marianne Faithfull. From my perspective, Vashti's musical talent was deeper and more unique than either Nico or Marianne's because of her abundant songwriting skills and her pristine mezzo-soprano singing voice.
Unfortunately, Vashti got lost in the delirium tremors of the '70's & she disappeared into to the parallel reality of the Almost Famous Icons of the Sixties Pop Subculture. Following her 15 minutes of musical fame, Vashti got married and raised a family.
Then something funny happened... In 2000, the right person found a dusty copy her 1970 album
Just Another Diamond Day in a flea market bin & managed to convince the British indie label Dichristina Stair to release the long out of issue album. Suddenly at age 55, Vashti Bunyan was doing interviews for music publications, touring & recording new material. In fact her second "almost famous" career in music has been more successful than her first.
The song below, the delicately gorgeous
Winter Is Blue was recorded for the
Diamond Day sessions but never appeared on any album until
Just Another Diamond Day was reissued thirty years after it's original release date.
Vashti Bunyan- Winter Is Blue (1970) appears as a bonus track on the 2000 reissue of the album Just Another Diamond Day.
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Elin Kastlander
I confess that I've fallen completely under the spell of Elin Kastlander's winsome voice. Ms. Kastlader is one half of the Swedish electronic pop group
jj (Yes the two "J"s are spelled in lower case with no period after each of the "J"s.)
Jj combines atmospheric synthetic pop with mind spacing psychedelic effects. The duo's songs reveal the subtle influence of classical madrigals (
Are You Still In Vallda?), childish nursery-rhymes (
My Love), Western-movie soundtracks (
My Hopes And Dreams) and girl-groups of the 1960s (the evocative and nostalgic
Masterplan), but each becomes the victim of a deliberate shift of context by the arrangements. Jj's two album releases have the oddly generic titles of
jj No.2 &
jj No.3. I'm not sure what happened to
jj No.1... maybe they're saving that title for a greatest hits album.
jj- Masterplan from the 2007 album jj No.2