(2022) annasara - Dear Body

Review:
Four years ago, classically trained violinist Annasara Lundgren effected a transition from working as a symphony and chamber musician to incarnating herself as the neoclassical singer-songwriter she presents herself as today. Four albums have appeared since 2018. Dear Body is admittedly a modest collection — seven tracks weighing in at a lean twenty-eight minutes — but the music nevertheless enchants and leaves you both satisfied and wanting more. Just as the track titles collectively form a coherent statement, the pieces gather into a cohesive expression, with four featuring vocals and three instrumentals. Each reveals the circumspect touch of an artist sensitive to the nuances of poetic songwriting and tasteful arranging. The album title, incidentally, was chosen to express Lundgren’s humble gratitude to her body for being the channel through which her music reaches fruition. She augments her vocal, violin, and piano performances with contributions from cellist Amelia Jakobsson, double bassist Simon Peterson, marimba player Johan Bridger, and, on the closing track, tenor Martin Vanberg. Their presence both helps humanize Lundgren’s music and enhances its chamber classical character. The impression the recording leaves is of a deftly executed blend of enduring songwriting structures and eloquent classical expression. The sound of a dusty upright introduces the album, after which Lundgren’s enchanting voice emerges to deepen the spell. The addition of string textures intensifies the dreamlike atmosphere of “In my silence” before the song resolves with a lovely solo violin coda. “There’s a heartbeat” then nudges the recording into a romantic chamber realm replete with piano and strings, after which “Surrounded by love” reinstates the alluring tone of the opener, this time her vocals multiplied to amplify the music’s swoon. Even better is “I am not broken” for the coupling of her voice with Vanberg’s, the contrast between their voices key to the seductive song’s appeal and the defiance with which she delivers the title phrase stirring. The vocal pieces naturally arrest for the presence of her singing; the instrumentals aren’t any less satisfying, however. With strings and Peterson accompanying him, Bridger’s at the forefront of “Let’s play,” his metronomic patterns naturally calling forth associations with American minimalism. As confident as she is in her songwriting, Lundgren isn’t averse to integrating material by another composer into a song, the haunting title track a good illustration for the way it works two themes from Sibelius’s Violin Concerto into its design. It’s telling, however, that the piece ultimately registers as an annasara creation, not a hybrid. By full-length standards, Dear Body is a short release, but it’s also a disarmingly beautiful one, and Lundgren has once again crafted something truly special.

Track List:
01 - In my silence
02 - There’s a heartbeat
03 - Surrounded By love
04 - Let’s play
05 - Dear Body
06 - Surrendering
07 - I am not broken


Media Report:
Genre: art pop, classical
Country: Malmö, Sweden
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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