Somewhat astonishingly Nordic Music Review is 5 years old over this next week, we have no idea how that happened or even why, and whilst we were going to try and do something astonishingly smart and clever to mark the landmark, we've decided instead to simply write about as many artists and bands as possible, because that's why started in the first place. Inevitably it will be a mix of old favourites and new introductions, and we'll start with an artist we briefly introduced back in 2017, Swedish songwriter 'Nervous City Nervous Self'.
We had zero information on the project at the time, so a brief interview established that it was named after a Max Beckmann painting, that there were no rules defining how the music should sound, but there were influences from both the 80's and more contemporary times. At the time we didn't even know the artists name, but it turns out that the project is the brainchild of Swedish singer/songwriter and poet David Josephson. Josephson has released his own solo Swedish language albums (most recently 'Misslyckandets estetik' - the aesthetics of failure), and has spent most of his life writing in his adopted city of Berlin.
His latest song released as 'Nervous City Nervous Self' is entitled 'Stories of Our Name', a personal song dedicated to the nomads of the world - those that wander, like migratory birds, searching for a destination and a 'home' of sorts. It's a laid back track, with an indie electro backdrop, an attractive meandering melody that gently builds to a chorus, and appropriately given the origins of the projects name, I like the vision and pictures it creates through the music and the words of the song - ''where will you go when all the birds are flying low, its a sign that somewhere far from home, there's a place where life goes on and on''. Similarly to the debut track under the Nervous City Nervous Self' name ('G-d Knows What'), there is an atmosphere to his songs which makes them quite distinctive.
This is 'Stories of Our Name':
You can find more details on the project on Soundcloud, Instagram or Facebook.