Rebecka Larsdotter: Feathers & Concrete
Prophone: PCD113
It’d be interesting to know how this excellent album will ever find its most appropriate audience as record company Prophone classifies it as ‘Swedish Jazz’ – which might be OK for many parts of Europe but I feel English listeners would possibly be more inclined to classify it as singer/songwriter soft progrock/funk slow groove easy listening.
Although some of the instrumental sections do sound a bit Weather Reportish the songs themselves largely sound more in a Carole King/James Taylor bag to me and Rebecka’s fine voice is definitely more Maria Muldaur than Cleo Laine.
This just highlights the problems surrounding labelling music into the ghettos we call genres. Prophone is already saddled with the somewhat esoteric Eurojazz epithet, so I feel UK audiences would probably never come across this superb album. I know of no outlet which is liable to highlight it to any but the most tenacious of bulldog-like musical explorers. I would never have expected such material on this label and had Naxos not sent it to me for review I would never have discovered it.
Whether or not it is really the current sound of Swedish Jazz is irrelevant; my point is that this album deserves a much wider audience than the genre will earn it. It deserves to be aimed at a more general adult pop/rock public than it will be with this release.
Maybe if this ‘review’ stirs a big enough body of listeners to explore the album or even buy it, then Prophone might think again and give Feathers and Concrete a second more general launch and I shall have done my duty.
Go to http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Prophone/PCD113 to give the album a listen
and find Rebecka on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/people/Rebecka-Larsdotter/1108793727#!/profile.php?id=1108793727
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