AMANDINE – waiting for the light to find us

(CD/digital, Fat Cat)

“Waiting for the light to find us” has replaced “fade away diamond time” by Neal Casal (released on Glitterhouse) as my favorite early morning office record, as the one record used most often to start into the day easily and with graze and beauty. From my office window I can see the light change across the river and the houses on the opposite side. These days I start quite early, around seven a.m. and it seems as if the light changes with the chords and the bittersweet melodies. As if these songs help the day to get into gear, shifting time with ease. Maybe it is the beautiful melodies or the piano chords, or the depth of the songwriting that is equal parts Gram Parsons and Will Oldham (though once again most reviewers will hit on Neil Young in lack of better knowledge, were they should be expecting Mickey Newbury but that’s just the way it goes, I guess.) and therefore the same acres that Magnolia Electric Company are working on. But it will be a long, grey autumn that will move into another cold winter; more and more frequently I will have to leave the house when it is still dark outside, and records like these are perfect for that tranquil, transistory state of the world. So there is enough time and space for another handful of bands in that area.

Amandine stand out for detailed arrangements and thoughtful, sensitive songwriting. Grandezza and epic size is densified into small portions, the essence of the song, beauty concentrated. The songs hold the balance on the thin line between emotional soundscapes and the melancholic yet happy West Coast sound. These instances come up in small details in the production. The horns on “Lover’s Trial” accompany the song into something grander without losing the warm intimacy that comes with the songs. The piano fading out “Between what he’s saying and what he regrets” and thereby also the whole EP has the perfect lonely echo. Overall it is the piano leading the songs rather than the guitar. The wonderful melody of “Union Falls”, with its reluctant, reduced to the basic use of horns, which made it straight to my autumn mix tape. And so on, through all the music contained hereon. This EP has only six songs but they are good enough to listen to them twice or three times in a row.

Nobody up to now has been able to satisfyingly answer why so many of these great bands come from Sweden or Scandinavia. Amandine are from Sandviken in Sweden and have been around for a half decade. They fit perfectly into the matrix laid down by bands such as Midnight Choir or The White Birch (also both on Glitterhouse) or any of the “Frozen Country” bands. Is it because autumns are even longer in Scandinavia than in central Europe? Because people are fundamentally more pensive, melancholic, sensitive and dreamy? Do the barren landscapes and inimical climatic conditions favour the inclination of people to warm their hearts with music bound to draw its base from the bottom of basic emotions. Their debut album spoke this sentiment out in plain words in its title already: “This is where our hearts collide”. You can’t be more open and direct and at the same time so poetic at the same time. With the new EP’s title I feel two souls close to each other, residing in the strength of their togetherness against all the evil and pain in the world and so hiding away and waiting for things to turn better in this world. In this respect it is unimaginable for me how anyone could not like this record.
www.fat-cat.co.uk
09/2006