First of all, I want to tell you a brief story about this album. I got interested in Melankton a few months ago when I discovered it on some other radio station on Google Play - probably one related to Imogen Heap's newest album Sparks, though I can't be certain. I listened to it for a while - probably racked up 10-15 plays - then got out of the habit and moved on to other stuff. A week or so ago, I opened up the album on Play Music once again and started listening. "There are no guarantees in life, not for the past, or for the future..." played, just as I remembered it. I began some other homework and left it going in the background. All of a sudden, I realized I had not heard the start of the song that was playing before: "Strange how it can be dark for you and dawn for me...". In short, I realized that before, the album had been missing at least three songs! In some strange, arcane record deal, the songs "Travel in Time[feat. Carmen Rizzo]," "Timeless," and "So:Lo" had been unavailable to stream via Google Play*. Of course, I instantly became obsessed with the album again - and here we are.
Melankton is one of my favorite alternative/electronic/folk albums ever. In fact, its strange undefineability is what really fascinates me - I couldn't really tell you what genre it falls into. After a brief bit of research, it's not all that surprising - Havnevik has worked together with Guy Sigsworth, the genre-bending producer who has also worked with Imogen Heap, and her parents were classical flutists (according to Wikipedia, at least). So the fact that her music wouldn't fit into the little genre boxes that we expect artists to fit into shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Her classical aspirations are strongly evident on every track - Havnevik makes thorough use of both strings and piano on pretty much every track, along with a host of other, stranger instruments, many of which I can't even identify. Combine that and her airy, haunting vocals and the occasional electronic touch, and you have a recipe for a masterful, gorgeous album that fascinates the listener the whole way through.
"Unlike Me," the album's first track, showcases the ethereality of the album. It has a plodding beat that hides most of the song beneath surging strings and what I think is a harp (technically a string, but not in the classical sense), and the simple instrumentation allows Havnevik's beautiful vocals to soar and carry the track very effectively. The song, as with much of the album, focuses around time and its flow - "All I know is / that I'm here; / Don't know for how long." Each verse seems to focus around either the character, written in first person, and the subject, written in second, and each one focuses on a different side of their relationship, especially the question of change in life and what that means. "You move and change, / yet you go nowhere: / Everything stays the same."
With this setup, she dives into "Travel in Time[feat Carmen Rizzo]," whose bouncy plucked-strings theme is distinctly more grounded in reality than "Unlike Me". Again, however, the song discusses a fundamental disconnect between the two characters (again first and second person). The song's strangely bouncy nature clashes with the sadness and confusion of the lyrics, reflecting the theme itself.
"I Don't Know You" reflects upon the unbreachable barrier between each two people. Our fundamental disconnection from the thoughts and feelings of others we meet is one of the biggest questions in philosophy, and in any relationship. "I Don't Know You" offers no answers, but the brassy buildup to the climax of the song maintain's the album's theme of confusion, giving release only in the tonal climax but not in the lyrics.
"You Again" is one of the more catchy tracks on the album. It reminds me of Frou Frou or maybe early Imogen Heap in its instrumentation, which focuses on rhythm and feeling over tone and melody. Its unsatisfying chords capture the experience of lost-ness that the lyrics speak of, the moments of unsatisfied near-obsession that we have all experienced after a relationship. The song has no closure, which seems fitting for the theme - closure in such situations is hard to come by.
The next song is drastically different from the previous tracks' ethereal sounds. Using her lower registers well, Havnevik writes "It's Not Fair" as a more angry track expressing the feelings of destruction that result from a bad breakup. Her switch from second person to third when speaking of the person in question is noticeable, as much of the emphasis on each line is on that word - "He got away with emotional murder / He slipped away with the summer breeze." This rejection of the intimacy provided by the use of second person is the perfect choice for the more angry song.
Havnevik switches to a more piano-driven theme for "Nowhere Warm," which has a distinctly more calm and happy theme than "It's Not Fair." Her voices' lightness is perfect to convey the loneliness and pining contained in much of the song.
"Serpentine" is a beautiful track, with the fascinating side note that the lyrics do not exist on the internet - the places where they claim to, various people have misquoted the song "Sleepless" instead. The instrumentation is the most beautiful part of this track, especially the gorgeous string harmonies.
My personal favorite track on the album is "Kaleidoscope," with its deep humming cello in the background and Havnevik's heartfelt vocals to send the melody soaring. The lyrics are what really draw me to it, however: "You know me, / how troubled I can be / But through your kaleidoscope / I let go / Cause you show me / the world as it could be, / Through your kaleidoscope / It's beautiful." The imagery used in the song is incredible - every line paints a vivid picture in my head. It is by far the most perfect track on the album, as beautiful as it is touching.
The surging, almost wave-like feeling of "Sleepless" is a drastically different feeling than the previous track. However, the imagery is just as present as it was in "Kaleidoscope," and the wandering feeling of the song fits the theme of the lyrics. The other noteworthy element is the beautiful harmonies during the chorus, giving just the right boost to the melody, and a more breathy quality to her already airy singing.
"Suckerlove," the next track on the album, is probably my least favorite, but more for what it isn't than for what it is. I have little to say about it except that it feels somewhat out of place, and while its discordant tune is beautiful in its own right, it feels out of character for the remainder of the album, especially its place within the larger work of art. Perhaps it was meant to break up the large number of more calming tracks on the second half of the album, but it mostly succeeds in feeling out of place due to the peaceful songs that surround it. In a way, however, its frustration does build the unsettling feeling that the unresolved questions asked by the first few tracks began, as does its extremely discordant tonality.
The string-themed opening to "Timeless" is a welcome relief to the musical questions posed by "Suckerlove." In fact, "Timeless" seems to be both the musical and themeatic answer to most of the questions posed by the album. "Timeless / Love is a cure / A promise / Still so pure," which offers an answer to the fundamental questions about trust and knowledge of other people - love, the cure to all these things. The more stereotypically "electronica" sounds in the peak of the song are the resolution to the discordant ideas brought up previously, leaving the listener satisfied by the song's higher energy and tempo.
"New Day," the last track that seems to be a part of the album in an artistic sense, focuses on cleaning up the loose ends left over after "Timeless." The lonely horn solo at the beginning captures the attention of the listener, now caught until the tremulous strings follow the snappy percussion into a deep, thrumming bass theme. When Havnevik opens her mouth, the song feels complete - urging the listener to look forwards from all these questions, rather than back ("So don't think of yesterday / It's here and now"). The urgency increases in this plea as the song carries on, as the very vocals begin to become mechanical, and the very lyrics themselves merge with the rhythm of the song, keeping the listener from obsessing over the meanings that came before, and putting the focus onto the new and the future - until all that's left is a thrumming rhythm.
Finally, the bonus track "So:Lo" is a beautiful, more conventional song that seems to stand alone in comparison to the rest. The beautiful instrumentation is accompanied by an incredibly catchy chorus that reminds me most of "Kaleidoscope." The lyrics focus on what it means to really move on and exist on your own, after being together for quite a while, and they sum it up perfectly.
Bonus Analysis: "Se Meg". The song is meant to slip into the album between "Suckerlove" and "New Day," replacing "Timeless." It provides a different sort of resolution to the questions asked earlier than "Timeless" - the rhythmic resolution is given priority over the lyrical. The rough translation of the Norwegian lyrics runs something like "See me / As I am / Take what comes / Show me where I am / And where I'm going / and who you are," according to Google Translate. Instead of giving the external solution of love, it proffers the internal solution of trust - it instead asks that our other character, "you," tell the singer who she is. I think, however, it is meant to be ironic - first, she requests that the listener take her as she is, but then asks for "you" to tell her where she is going. It's a slight incompatibility, but perhaps she's simply saying that that's what love is - a string of paradoxes that must be resolved to true statements.
So, that's the album, or at least the one that's available on Amazon for download. I firmly believe that it is one of the best albums of its type that exist, although it isn't exactly a fully-explored area on the musical spectrum. I plan to review the rest of Havnevik's musical offerings over the course of the next few months, so check back soon and hopefully I will post something like this for both of her newer albums as well.
Hope you enjoy!
-A
* I've since realized that the Google Play version of the album is also now missing the track "Se Meg", which was one of my personal favorites from before. A disappointing drop from the streaming service, as well as the digital copy of the album I downloaded. Maybe hesitate for a moment before getting the digital copy off Amazon and look for a different place to get it? Though the track is also missing from the official digital copy available on Havnevik's personal website, so... I don't know what to suggest. The digital copy from her official website is also missing the final bonus track "So:Lo", another favorite, so I guess you just get screwed no matter where you buy it. I purchased it separately on Amazon off the specific UK edition of the digital album for an extra $.99.
