JArelease date: Sep. 14, 2018
format: digital (10 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,22]
producer: Camillo Gino, Lise Westzynthius
label: Heavypop / DME - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Mommo" - 2. "Flyv mig ind" - 3. "Kaster dig op" - 4. "Laura Palmer" - 8. "På den anden side" - 10. "Fuck. Du forlader mig aldrig"
5th studio album by Lise Westzynthius following 6½ years after Tæt på en kold favn (Mar. 2012) issued on Westzynthius own label Heavypop via Danish Music & Entertainment and co-produced by Westzynthius and Camillo Gino (Askjær) (guitarist in the Danish band Rum 37). All songs are credited Westzynthius alone except two compositions: tracks #3 and #4, which are both co-written by Bjørn Rasmussen. Btw. "Laura Palmer" is translated dialogue (by David Lynch) taken from the Twin Peaks TV-series.
Apparently, and according to Westzynthius herself, she spent some years after her 2012 album finding back on her feet. From her own website it's described as she took "...a deeper dive into her inner self. This lead to a journey of 6-7 years within the fields of body work, shamanism, hypnosis, ayahuasca, tantra, meditation, etc. All along the way, new songs were born, and Lise slowly started working on them together with a good friend, Camillo Gino." According to Westzynthius this journey was a healing process, where she focussed on being more minded on her physical conditions because she has had a natural way of dealing with emotional aspects, and she need more grounding. In this regard, JA ["YES"] is a way of meeting and focussing on positive aspects of life, and if that includes being stark-naked, Westzynthius has no reservations with that.
Musically, the album mostly follows the tone of her 2012 album. The biggest difference is her extreme positivism, which at times tend to be an expression touching on naivety. Lyrically, she has certainly evolved. Where early lyrics bore traits of obscurity and mysticism, which involved some kind of deciphering of her lyrics, she now expresses herself in a much more direct manner. Thematically, she hasn't completely left her divorce, she returns to the memory of her ex-husband in several lyrics, e.g. on "På den anden side", which also recounts the title of the debut album by her ex-husband, and at the same time she keeps repeating that she's looking forward to meeting his real self "On the Other Side" [of what? When they are dead? Or, when she's finally over the break-up and they can meet again?], but the overall impression is an artist, who appears more willing to experiment. I'm not fully convinced about the end result, though. There's a blue-eyed and near new-religious tone to most of her songs that keeps bothering me but apart from that, it's just nice to have Westzynthius back.
