Hello Saferide
Live @ Magnet, Berlin, 09/24/2009
I'd waited several years for Annika Norlin and her bandmates to finally make their way to Germany and yet I really didn't know what to expect. Or rather, the show made me realize what I had been expecting by the surprises it gave me. I guess it was Annika's performance as a singer that stood out most -- she came across as a very strong and powerful storyteller, not as the tender or vulnerable songwriter some of her work portrays her to be. I'm not taking the cliché (and sexist) perspective here that "female songwriters have to be gracious creatures": It was her music and not her gender that had me expecting something slightly different. The whole evening came to contain more audience-directed performance than self-referential authenticity -- very refreshing from a pop-cultural point of view -- with Annika not singing, but more likely declaiming the lyrics, when without instrument often with erratic hand or head movements somewhat reminiscent of Anders Wendin (Moneybrother). I've always found Annika's songs to share similarities with short stories, especially in their careful plot construction with turning points and punchlines placed at the end of songs. In a way, Annika staged this affinity to fictional prose very well in her performance: While evidently telling other people's stories and not hers, she did so in a very captivating and engaging way. Especially the duets "Overall" (with album producer Andreas Mattson) and "Long lost penpal" (with Andrea "Firefox AK" Kellerman) reminded me of Stars' Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan acting and interpreting songs rather than just singing them. I believe that it was exactly this enthusiasm which Annika and her five bandmates presented their songs that really won over the crowd in Berlin's well-filled Magnet Club. In the case of Stars, the short-story'ness of their songs has gotten a bit old with time, but Annika was clever enough to throw in more personal, quieter moments like the beautiful "I wonder who is like this one" or the atmospheric encore-closer "Arjeplog" that allowed listeners to connect with her performance on a more emotional level. Now that Annika has proven to be an extremely skillful, conceptually working lyricist and performer well-versed in the art of pop culture, I'm curious to see where she'll go next.
- Arnulf Köhncke
