Jesper Lindell debuts a musical melting pot
Years ago one of my favorite Celtic bands counted among their ranks a young woman from Sweden. She was a stunning vocalist, and to hear her renditions of old Irish tunes, you’d swear she’d been plucked straight from the field of Connemara.
As a nod to her heritage, the band included an arrangement of a traditional Swedish song about werewolves. The tune was called “Varulven”, and between the band’s exotic arrangement and the singer’s gorgeous voice in her native tongue, it was (and is) entrancing.
There’s a funny point to be made about accents. When she sang Irish, she sounded Irish; when she sang Swedish, she sounded Swedish. When she spoke to you personally, one on one, that Swedish accent became so pronounced that it was sometimes necessary to ask her to slow down a bit because my big, dumb, American ears couldn’t always follow.
I don’t know if Jesper Lindell has a Swedish accent when he speaks, though it’s reasonable to assume so. I’ve never spoken with the man. I have, however, heard him sing. And to hear him sing, you’d be hard pressed to guess that the gifted musician from a small town near Stockholm grew up anywhere too far from New Orleans or Chicago.
I’m not exaggerating. The bluesy tracks of his debut album, Everyday Dreams, sound so perfectly natural, one must assume he is from the land of ham hocks and collard greens instead of surströmming and meatballs.
For all that, this isn’t strictly a blues album. The twelve tracks cover some territory and while the blues tunes are certainly bluesy, the folk tunes are…well, folksy. In fact, Lindell’s musical loves include old pop, R&B, and classic rock and he brings all of these influences to bear on the album.
Given the diversity of influences and their varying prominence in one song to the next, there could be a risk of a disjointed or incoherent album, but Lindell sidesteps that pitfall easily.
Instead of a Whitman’s Sampler of “look what I can do”, the album is tied together by the singular vision of its creator, a man who brings together the best of all the things he likes into an album that is itself an endearing love letter to music.
Far more than “merely listenable”, Everyday Dreams is an album that can be left on repeat all afternoon without ever invoking any listener fatigue. As a debut album, it is a delightful success. It remains to be seen whether follow up albums gravitate more to one direction or another, but I rather hope not.
The real magic of the collection is Lindell’s skill in combining various elements into a whole package that ultimately qualifies as modern folk. I think his vocals on a couple of tunes are strongly reminiscent of Marcus Mumford, which tends to reinforce that notion.
Sweden is a global powerhouse in pop music production and this is plainly at work in the overarching pop sensibility of the album. It is folk music, and it does have strong blues elements on a selection of tunes. It is several other things as well, but all of it is unified by Lindell’s sense of taste and a level and style of production far beyond the reach of a typical debut album.
It is no wonder that he has made a significant impact in his home country. The time is fast approaching when he will make a similar impact internationally and Everyday Dreams is the perfect vehicle for reaching the global audience.
The album is available now in multiple formats from Alive Naturalsound Records, a company that has firmly established itself as the go-to for up and coming phenoms.