Siv Jakobsen features often in these columns but we do love her music, and as one of the very first 'followers' of Nordic Music Review (at least on Twitter) we feel we owe her one for that fact alone.
In fact the second single, ‘Island’, from her forthcoming album ‘A Temporary Soothing’ was reviewed only three weeks ago and it was to do with creating and retaining her own creative space. The first one, ‘Fear the Fear’ was darker and about just that – the negative thoughts that constantly swirl around her head and how she finds it hard to write without them as companions.
In this instance she’s drifted back into darker territory again (let’s be honest, that’s just where we want her to be, a Julie Andrews-like Siv frolicking in the summer meadows just wouldn’t fit) with a song about undying love and the commitment that requires.
Siv says, “I had this image of a very old couple lying in bed together - still and stuck to the bed-frame, at the end of their life, taking their final breaths together. The song developed into a broader look upon what it is to stay with someone forever, to make that decision and be certain about it. To love someone and to receive love isn’t always easy, and giving yourself to someone so completely can be frightening and all consuming.”
I suppose it could just as easily be called ‘Fear the Love’.
The lyrics are a bit grim at times and won’t exactly cheer you up.
“We’ll grow hollow in that room/as our bodies stay, our minds are drifting fumes/they float from our bodies/from our bed, from our brains, to their grave”. You can imagine those guys from The League of Gentlemen who write Christmas ghost stories coming up with something like that, as an introduction to tonight’s eerie tale.
Having said that, it is wrapped up in an acoustic guitar and percussion-led tune, which sounds a little more ‘poppy’ than we would normally expect from Siv.
The video was shot whilst she was on tour in Japan last year in the mountain village of Hijiori, which seems to be in lockdown apart from her and a few tourists who’ve got lost. Doing her best impression of the woman in the Scottish Widows TV advert Siv goes for a walk along a bobsleigh run where the track has melted, having consumed too much sake.
Speaking of Japan I know she couldn’t get there immediately after Iceland Airwaves last November when the winds blew too hard in Reykjavik as they often but she must have made it eventually to film this. Travelling seems to be her nemesis. It seems she had to make an 11th hour escape back to Norway halfway through her U.S. tour because of the virus and dates are currently being rescheduled for her UK tour which was set for May. The release date for the album has also been rescheduled from 24 April to 21 August.