Anna Ternheim: Separation Road

Anna Ternheim is a moody swedish songbird and this is her second album. After short intro there comes 10 mostly acoustic based pop-songs in compact 35 minutes. Lyrics are important and sung quite clearly, although sometimes her broken english with thick swedish accent is a bit irritating. Sometimes I´m all charmed about the accent. Most of the lyrics deal with separation and relationships as the title suggests. Some lyrics go to painfull details as if to suggest if she has been searching problems in the relationships. There has to be some autobiographical elements in the songs. In song "Calling Love" she describes the life she had with her boyfriend in their worn apartment outside town. His kids come to see him on saturday (divorced guy) and she thinks how she is going to measure up to his children. In the hit song (?) "Girl Laying Down" she describes her depressed previous life when all she did was sleeping and watching TV. Refreshingly un-swedish themes here. The closing song "Halfway to Fivepoints" is also one highlight of this album that I´ve grown to like over the past 4 months.

In the cover Anna is portrayed with a large field of windpowerstations and kids in white t-shirts. Maybe all those kids remind her about the kids she wished she had from those failed relationships? As a subscriber to windpower electricity I engourage popstars to use windpower in their coverart! It looks good too. Finland produces too little windpower and there should be more.

I like the cd jewelcase Universal-records are using now. It has rounded corners and the hinges of jewelcase are more protected than in ordinary cases. The hinges of usual cases are always in danger of breaking but not in this model. At least some improvement in that area!

Steven Saylor: A Murder on the Appian Way

This book belongs to the genre of historical novels where events, places and characters have existed but most of the story is invented. This is fifth in a series of "detective"-stories set in ancient Rome. The plot happens at AD 52 and includes characters such as Caesar, Cicero, Pompey and Marc Anthony. Main character Gordianus is sort of ancient version of Hercule Poirot, who solves the mysteries of rich and famous. This novel tells a lot about those times and customs and how the life of a slave didn´t mean much. The plot centers around a murder of a noble man Clodius (and about 20 of his slaves) that happens outside Rome. Most of the plot is extracted from the written stories of actual speeches of Cicero who acted as a lawyer for main suspect Milo. Gordianus, who must be invented character, is a middle-aged man who finds out things. He is never called as a detective but "finder".

There was lot of action and most of the story moved forward swiftly. Characters were well rounded and I enjoyed almost all of it. Some parts were a little bit too sugary and unbelievable but I liked this novel so much that I might seek some more from the same writer. Some surfing from the net reveals that the writer has background in gay-themed litterature and that shows here and there in this book, but not in a too underlined way. Let´s just say that the writer is more adept at describing muscular bodies of gladiators than the femme fatales every mystery story needs. This was a translated version and it has been shortened a little. I don´t know how much it has been shortened and does it affect the story in any way. There has also been maps in the original version of the book which would have been nice addition while reading the story. Maybe next time I´ll get a hardcover "deluxe-edition" of one of these books.

Emerald Forest

Sometimes I feel there is nothing in my life that´s worth mentioning. There is no time to experience the things I want and need. When the few moments of revelations come it´s almost too much of an inspiration. When I reach the gazebo inside my emerald forest I have to take my time to breath the tranquility and shine. Survive another week on the strength of it.

Midlake: The Trials of Van Occupanther

I´ve grown to like this album a lot during this year. It´s not the most personal album ever made yet it has a unique feeling. Playing and especially singing harmonies, and there´s lot of harmonies, have clear inspirations in 70´s. Lyrically this is loose theme album about a guy named van Occupanther and his adventures hundred years ago. That is one of the many time bending aspects of this album. It moves in time, it is modern yet timeless and it escapes strict categories yet it sort of falls into categorical indiepop. Tracks blend in to one and the quality of songwriting is high through the album. If i had to pick my favourites they would be the opener "Roscoe" and "Young Bride". I can listen to Young Bride over and over again.

This was a digital download and I could not take a photo of it, so there is a pic of a panther. It has no relation to the album´s graphics, although I think there is a guy dressed as a panther. I think every blog needs an image to set a mood. If there is only text it doesn´t have the necessary impact for me. Can´t help it.

Colours

This blog needs a splash of autumn colours right here. I´ve used too many of this kind of pictures in my other blog. Saturday and sun is shining...off to snap some more wonders of nature.

Liekki / Jenni Rope

One of my favourite finnish music artists, Liekki, has published a new album: Kalliot Leikkaa (lower right). Once again it has a nice cover from Jenni Rope, who is one of the best illustrators in Finland. I have sometimes entertained the idea of getting the singles of the band as the covers are good in those too, even though I´ve heard that the b-side songs aren´t that great. I read somewhere that most record collectors are graphically oriented and see the graphics of the album as an important part of the music. I´m guilty as charged there, I suppose. The best Liekki-cover still has to be Korppi (upper right). Korppi is also still the best Liekki-album musicwise for me. It´s the one I would choose for the desert island along with about 10 other albums.

And the music? Well...it has more heavy and progressive elements and I´m not all that satisfied with it. I want wussy indie-pop not heavy. Maybe I have to do a mix-cd out of it, where I skip all heavy songs. There would still be plenty of wonderful songs left as the album is 75 minutes long and has 16 songs.