Gardening. Siv Jakobsen

This is Siv Jakobson's third album on this blog. In 2017 you will find 'The Nordic Mellow' and in 2020 'A Temporary Soothing'. Being honest, I do not have a lot of recollections here. More mood than songs. Reading backwards, I notice that my introduction to Gardening is exactly the same as with Jakobsen's previous albums. They have a tendency to just pass by, nearly unnoticed, yet leaving something behind that demands another listening session.

There is a remedy: turn up the record. At this moment the depth of Gardening reveals itself more and more. The mood and atmosphere laid into the production comes forward. The result is me being sucked into the record more and more. The slow rhythm, the strings, the dreamy singing, they become a reality and hard to ignore. Like a loud bang. Not, of the mean ear-splitting kind. No, simply that the music becomes present, opens itself as it were for the listener, revealing the beauty of this album called Gardening.

When the lockdowns hit late winter 2020, Siv Jakobson found herself back in what she calls home, Oslo. After years of touring and working mostly abroad, her memories visited her as well. The start of Gardening they turned out to be. A reckoning that still needed to take place. By 2021 she had the songs ready but travelling was not allowed. (My own son lived in Tromsø and Oslo for almost a year in the same period, talking of walks in the woods nearby for hours on end, just like Jakobsen does in the bio.) She recorded in Norway for he first time with local artists and producer.

Can I hear a difference? No, there's no telling whether the album would have sounded totally different. It is full of atmosphere and so subdued. Everything is kept small, is my overall impression with Siv Jakobsen's voice as a part of the whole. Singer and music are often one. The music is somewhere between a modern kind of singer-songwriter, folk music and dreampop. In the end being neither as everything keeps changing and  other elements are added, making Gardening its unique self. Not unlike fellow Norwegian singers Ane Brun or Susanna do on their recent albums.

Some songs come with a nice surprise. I will let you discover them yourself. Siv Jakobsen manages to give most songs an extra texture, making the album far more varied that a superficial, i.e. too softly played, listening session lets on. You can even expect a jazzy outing. Beauty caught on record gardening is.

I will not promise to be listening to Gardening two years from now. In the meantime the album certainly is worthwhile to give several spins.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Gardening here:

https://sivjakobsen.bandcamp.com/album/gardening