Nicollide and the Carmic Retribution

Artist - Nicolai Dunger
Album - Nicollide and the Carmic Retribution
Label - EMI (Sweden)

One listens to new Van Morrison albums like Geordies travel to Old Trafford - in misplaced optimism, rather than expectation.

In 2001, Nicolai Dunger released Soul Rush, and it would be the best album Van Morrison had made in the past 30 years - jazzy, soulful, soaring and aching. Dunger is a singer-songwriter from Sweden, and Nicollide is his twelfth album/ EP.

He has followed a wilfully eclectic course since then - following up Soul Rush, and the breakthrough Tranquil Isolation, with more of the same would have made him huge.

Instead, he has released darker and darker material, released albums in Swedish instead of English (which he can't really be blamed for!), and generally done anything possible to make music that only he wanted to make.

Nicollide sees him make a return to English, and to some of the strongest songs in an age. But he doesn't make it easy - among the Sufjan Stevens-like orchestration and instrumentation, there are a few tracks that would test the biggest fan. But, some here - Been Cheating, Too Free To Be Gone - are enough to make a grown man cry, such is their raw power.

When Nicolai Dunger wants to write a great song he can, but here they're mixed into a One From The Heart Tom Waits romantic soundtrack and a Sufjan Illinois reverie.

Having a listen on iTunes and downloading only the tracks you first like would be a shame - listen as a whole, and it makes a whole lot more sense.

Rating 7/10
Mike Rea

2:36pm Monday 25th February 2008

Print   Email this