It isn’t surprising that Sweden’s Frida Sundemo is signed to Cosmos Music. Her motivation seems to be space - both terrestrial and celestial – and science fiction, in a pop-meets-classics manner that is described as ‘cosmic alt-ballads.’
Her last release, ‘Gazelles’, was a passive ballad punctuated abruptly by swirling violins. 'Anything', the third song to be released from her forthcoming EP (April 2020), which marks her return to music since her 2017 debut international album, ‘Flashbacks & Futures’, is about never giving up, not for your own sake or for the sake of the ones you love.
Cinema seems to feature quite highly in her compositional matrix and she draws inspiration from composers like Hans Zimmer and John Williams. And she is an actress, having made her big-screen acting debut in the film Kill Your Friends and she also wrote three songs for the soundtrack. Her songs have also been featured on television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Teen Wolf.
Ok, enough of the hype already, what about the song? It definitely has a lavish cinematic quality to it, especially in the last minute or so, where it would probably fit a remake of a Hollywood blockbuster like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T. She’s got an angelic voice, in the Aurora mould, but one which also reminds me here in a way of Anna von Hausswolff. (And the song actually starts with a rising synth sound similar to the one on von Hausswolff’s ‘Evocation’).
And the delicate little synth touches hanging in the background are divine. But it’s the complex beat which holds it together. There are few artists/bands which write percussion-led songs, especially when they are solo artists.
An excellent piece of work. Very impressive.
Useless fact: Frida Sundemo is the second artist I have encountered who is also studying to be a doctor (a neurologist in her case). Indeed she taught herself music production during her studies. (The other is Australia’s Gordi, who has recently qualified).