Lina Nyberg: Anniverse

Vocalist Lina Nyberg takes us through a calendar year with her album Anniverse. Being Swedish, we're talking northern hemisphere when she sings of January and following footsteps in the snow with the sun only barely appearing on the horizon. Dark but not dispirited she intones rising hopes. This recording began with Nyberg's call to her long time collaborators pianist Cecilia Persson, guitarist David Stackenäs, bassist Josef Kallerdahl, and drummer Peter Danemo to send her ten words they associated with a specific month. She then wrote lyrics and returned then to the musicians to compose music.

Akin to a journal, the eleven tracks (February and March are squeezed into one) follow the calendar year, from dark to light to dark again and from cold to hot and back again. A calendar year is a perfect vehicle for Nyberg to display her range, which takes in jazz, classical, stage, and improvisational song. From "Januari" we parade into "The February March" and the earth's great transformation. Nyberg's beautiful incantations over Danemo's marching pulse summon the hopes of spring even as winter maintains its cold grip. Onward to Vernon Duke and Yip Harburg's classic "April In Paris," which is delivered as an urban field recording with hesitant vocals. Nyberg's delivery of the now famous lyrics is both sure yet apprehensive. Spring equals love and love equals spring. "Maj" finds Schumann's "May, Sweet May" reimagined as the stirring of all earthly things growing towards the sun. Nyberg's semi-classical rendering beseech the creator to push up the shoots.

The months pass with a gentle beauty. "June" and "Julian" are both devastatingly exquisite and a prelude to the collision of land and sea of "August." The highlight here might be David Stackenäs' reworking and arrangement of the 1978 Earth, Wind, & Fire pop hit "September." The ensemble takes it at an unhurried pace that reinterprets E,W&F's "Ba-du-da" in a fresh new light. "The October Storm" plays off of Broadway, "November" delivers divine wordless scat, and "Dear December" ends the year in preparation for the cold and dark once more. One more trip around the sun.