(2023) Susanna - Baudelaire & Orchestra
Review:
On her trilogy of albums dedicated to Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, Susanna offered a unique glimpse into her powers of transformation. Each volume uncovered different perspectives on her own music as well as the French poet's writing: She reincarnated his poems into hauntingly lonely songs on Baudelaire & Piano, then added flesh to their bones with Elevation's tape loops and field recordings. She completes the project with Baudelaire & Orchestra, a self-explanatory title that only hints at the album's layers. Too often, orchestral interpretations of pop music are heavy-handed, but Susanna ensures that the conclusion of the project is just as thoughtful and inventive as the previous two releases. As on Elevation, she widens her creative team, and with the help of composer Jan Martin Smørdal, arranger Jarle G. Storløkken, and the KORK Orchestra (the radio orchestra of Norway's national broadcaster NRK), she mines Baudelaire & Piano's and Elevation's compositions for all the moods they can express. At this point in the project, these songs are standards in Susanna's songbook -- when Baudelaire & Orchestra comes to a triumphant end with a brassy version of "The Vampire," it feels like she's playing one of her greatest hits. As rousing as "The Vampire" is, it reflects the care Susanna and company took with giving an orchestral scope to all of the album's pieces. The echoing piano arpeggios of Elevation's "Alchemy of Suffering" become swirling strings and flutes that deepen its eldritch mystique; on "Elevation," harp and strings build into gusts that evoke Baudelaire's longing for "sky-clear spaces." Several songs are reinvented anew. Baudelaire & Piano's somber "Burial" is now a processional with a marching beat and brass that verges on celebratory, while "Destruction"'s taut strings and brass squalls live up to its title's tension and drama. Frequently, Baudelaire & Orchestra emphasizes the beauty of Susanna's voice and melodies as well as the songs' poignancy, as on the transcendent version of "Obsession." However, the album never strays too far from the source material's darkness and bite thanks to the immersive sound collages created by longtime collaborator Stina Stjern and the immediacy of its live performances. Susanna always commits herself to her interpretations of other artists' work completely, but she's accomplished something remarkable with the Baudelaire trilogy. Baudelaire & Piano honed in on her voice and songwriting, Elevation focused on her gift for mood, and Baudelaire & Orchestra put the spotlight on her artistic ambition. As a whole, they're an inspiring testament to her music and to the different shapes creativity takes. — allmusic
Track List:
01 - Sarcophagi
02 - Obsession
03 - The Ghost
04 - Burial
05 - Heavy Sleep
06 - Destruction
07 - Rewind
08 - Longing for Nothingness
09 - Alchemy of Suffering
10 - Elevation
11 - The Vampire
Media Report:
Genre: art pop, chamber pop
Country: Oslo, Norway
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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