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Rating:
If you ever find yourself coming home particularly tired, before immersing yourself in the lushness of a nice hot bath, for once I would skip Diamond Life by Sade and put this "Catching Currents" by the lovely Dutch Fridoljin on the turntable.
With albums like this, which flirt with jazz and lounge music, the risk of them being classified as simple background music is very high. However, I tell you, I bought this work as soon as it was released (October 2015) and I still appreciate its formal intelligence as well as its emotional insights.
In just 8 very substantial tracks, Fridoljin and her band weave elevated cinematic easy listening textures, fending off the dangers of clichés that the genre might evoke.
The tracks are all very expansive: an average of 5 minutes of piano-guitar expansions, to which a rhythm section is added that moves nimbly between nu jazz, acoustic pop, and even jungle ("Guards Down").
The ensemble is so skillful and refined that it is garnering praise from England to Japan.
A special merit goes to the songwriting and, above all, to Fridoljin's voice. Which is not a phony: she moves across the notes with great control, seeking the most unusual harmonies and the most elaborate phrasings.
What can I say, it has surprisingly won me over.
You can listen to it in full here
Tracklist
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