I associate Rune Grammofon more with chilly ambience than warm ethereal female voices so this Norwegian singer's second album comes as a pleasant surprise.
Anneli Drecker first became known through the band Bel Canto, with Geir 'Biosphere' Jenssen and Nils Johansen, and she also spent 10 years with Royksopp. This, together with numerous high profile collaborations, has earned her the dubious honour of being labelled The Queen of Artic Electronica.
For her second solo record - after 2015's Rocks & Stars - she emotes effectively thanks to her pure Kate Bush-like voice. She also plays piano and mellotron and produced the album. All but one of the songs - Waiting Time - features the Artic Orchestra and stirring string arrangements by Sindre Hotvedt.
All the seven songs are based on English translations of lyrics by Norwegian poet Arvid Hanssen and being full of wonderment over nature's richness they are blissfully detached form the harsh realities of the daily grind.
"Sing happiness to me" she urges on Sun Wave while in On A Road we find her walking beside precipices seemingly lost in time ("It was not day, it wasn't night").
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On occasion, I get the impression that some of the original grace and eloquence is lost in translation. In Raindrops, for instance, Drecker gets all gooey-eyed over the silvery raindrops on a twig but undermines the poetic mood by noting that "some are nothing other than wet".
Despite this, the album is for the most part a magical and transporting experience with the opening and closing tracks being the most impressive.
Blue Evening, is melodically rich while on Revelation For Personal Use , the title tune, Drecker's angelic tones are set beside the harsh, yet fascinating, throat singing of Radik Tyulyush from the Tyva Republic. Tyulyush also contributes exotic instrumentation in the form of a shoor, igil and khomus (mouth harp).
All told, this is a record that effortlessly combines a wintry Nordic atmosphere with a sunshine mood to make for an unlikely soundtrack to Summer.
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