Susanna — Meditations on Love
Qobuz new release review (August 2024)
Since her debut in 2004, Susanna Wallumrød has produced a robust and diverse body of work that lives in a decidedly singular universe, incorporating jazz, electronics, singer-songwriter vibes, and indie-oriented eclecticism. Whether the spare, emotionally charged covers of everything from Prince to Thin Lizzy on 2008’s Flower of Evil, the artful intensity of her 2014 collaboration with Jenny Hval (Meshes of Voice), or any of her many other forays into sonic adventurousness, Wallumrød’s strong, distinct, and versatile voice has been just about the only consistent feature of her music which has flowed voluminously over the years. So somewhat surprising is the half-decade gap between her last release (Garden of Earthly Delights, with Brotherhood of our Lady) and Meditations on Love. Of course, those five years featured a global pandemic, but Meditations on Love is not at all a “post-pandemic” album; instead, it is a complex and richly detailed work that Wallumrød clearly felt needed developmental attention. Lyrically, the material focuses on “love” as a concept, but, uniquely, is not fixated on the flush of romance or the despair of heartbreak, but instead on the more quotidian aspects of relationships. Or, as she puts it in “Battles,” the “battles of power and battles of love” that define life with someone. Meditations is very well-considered lyrically, and, appropriately, the music is also richly textured and dynamic. Wallumrød, producer Juhani Silvola, and engineer Marcus Bror Forsgren huddled together for extended studio sessions to deconstruct and reconstitute raw material — recorded solo, with jazz musicians, percussionists, string sections, or with a battery of electronic instruments — into entirely new arrangements from the ground up. Wallumrød’s voice is the focal point throughout, and remarkably, its strength and clarity makes the densely constructed arrangements sound airy and spacious. The result is a strikingly diverse and fresh sound that feels both organic and otherworldly, intimate and universal.
