Susanne Sundfør
Ten Love Songs

"My Music is like beautiful mathematics"

Ok, let's pause for a moment because the subject in question deserves a thorough analysis.

Susanne Sundfor (I omit the åptang, I apologize) is definitely the most interesting composer at the moment, and perhaps it is no coincidence that she comes from a small Norwegian town and a family that was always playing records continuously around the house. She graduated from a music high school, then debuted with the self-titled album; an album that years ago stood in the window of "Disco Club" in Genoa, and I wondered who was the author of a work with a colored-pencil cover and a name that's difficult to pronounce.

The main reference Susanne finds is in the grooves of Cat Stevens, but especially Carole King and the Canadian maestro Joni Mitchell, with whom she shares origins in remote countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Joni would be cited multiple times in her subsequent albums, "The Brothel" (2011) has much in common with "Woodstock" and the period of "Hissing of Summer Lawns" (1975) by the Canadian composer. "Ten Love Songs" is the result of a vast musical culture, classical and pop, that merges into a work of '80s-inspired influence but only draws from that era the glam and easy patina. Because Susanne Sundfor's music is a multi-layered variety of genres and styles that had never been heard before, it's a mathematical equation where Handel finds a place alongside ABBA, where Bach is a coefficient of the Beatles. Something astonishing. You can listen to it for days and days without catching all the details and references, from Bach to the intro of "Pipes of Peace" by McCartney with the long synth note that opens "Delirious". Susanne owes her love for a casual and fearless approach to listening as a child to that anarchic masterpiece "The Beatles" ('68), in which you can do everything without fear of doing too much. In these ten love songs, more about the consequences of love than infatuation, there is so much material and depth that the mere ten minutes of the masterpiece "Memorial" (a homage to the Joni of "Paprika Plains"?) are enough to get an idea of the musical function created by Susanne. It starts with an acoustic guitar leading to an opening, a thinly veiled homage to Rick Wright, with a splendid and enveloping synth sound that leaves us with the piano (her preferred instrument along with the organ) as a guide towards an exploration of classical musical themes from early 20th-century Europe. And that's just one track. It's pointless to mention the deadly effects on the limbic system of songs like "Darlings", "Fade Away", "Kamikaze", and the synth-pop gem "Slowly".

Take note of her name because it seems music has found what it needed.