PERIOD 8

Lene Marlin Concert in the Värmland's Opera

(Published by Morgenbladet, September 5, 2008)

Lene Marlin is on her way towards ballads and jazz, ten years after her teenage breakthrough.

GROWN DEBUT: The occasion was exclusive: Lene Marlin held her first full-length evening concert, and in a Swedish opera.

"What have I done?/ What if it’s too late now?", Lene Marlin is wondering in a slightly hesitating opening of "How Would It Be". She has chosen a beautiful opera scene in Värmland for her first (!) full-length evening concert. And here she also is showing that this just isn't too late: Lene Marlin has become 28 years old and is on the right way - towards something else.

Introvert hostess. It seems a very long time ago the little girl with the big cords was decorating the front page of Natt&Dag - feeling 17, acting 22. There have been a full ten  years since she created international pop of such a calibre which in this country was reserved an a-Ha experience. And there have been five years since the pillow poet was strumming a quartet of songs at Oslo City, with shivering lips and white-as-a-sheet hands.

Symphonic. Before this performance in the Vârmland's Opera, Lene Marlin has built a stronger self image. Bashfully dressed in jeans and a black top she is standing firmly by the microphone, smiling and making jokes before a grateful audience - about the Swedish soft ice Piggelin which cost 3.50 when she was on a vacation as a child, and about how "Sitting Down Here" got its title from the friend's comment "æ sitj no hær nere".

Flanked by ten co-players - Bernt Rune Stray (acoustic guitars), Sigmund Vegge (guitars and lap-steel), Jonny Sjo (bass), Jango Nilsen (drums), Karl Oluf Wennerberg (percussion) and Bernt Moen (tangents), as well as four string players from the Värmland Opera's Sinfonietta - Lene Marlin is leading a swinging and hypnotizingly well interacting eleven.

New album. Already with the third song, "Come Home", a beautiful and sensitive ballad, she is presenting something from the until now unreleased material that will constitute the fourth album, expectingly finished "this year - or next year".

Songs like "Do You Remember", a nostalgic singer-songwriter ballad (being played alone with the guitar, as the only song) about being put to bed with mud or salt water in your hair, "Learned From Mistakes", with lap-steel and strong strings, and the next big hit, "You Could Have", will most probably attract both acoustic and electronic elements during the recording - with Even "Magnet" Johansen behind the producer's sticks.

Out of the pop format. However, also the catalogue is being twisted gently. The greatest hits, "Unforgivable Sinner", "Sitting Down Here", "You Weren’t There", and "How Would It Be", are carrying their cozy live dresses becomingly. "Sinner" is being handed, not surprisingly, the first big ovation. Hyper frequent radio-listing still has not managed to destroy one of the greatest Norwegian pop songs of all time. However, best of all is the clean jazz pop version of "Never To Know", the beautiful "The Way We Are", "It's True", where the string quartet and the tangents are co-flying, as well as the mini-monumental rock versions of "Fight Against The Hours", "Hope You're Happy", and "Faces" - all strong indications of firm steps out of the pop format.

Grown. Lene Marlin dares drawing outside of the boundaries. She is about to find herself again - not unlike what Swedish Robyn did ten years following her teenage breakthrough. This does not mean she should stop diving for pop pearls, like for instance the songs she gave away to Sissel Kyrkjebø, "Should It Matter" and "We Both Know", or writing songs for world stars like Rihanna (even though she should consider dropping duets with Lovebugs and Marquess). However, this means that her returning themes - sorrow, love and heartbreak - also are the chime for acoustic ballads, jazz, or rock.

Like Rolf Jacobsen wrote: "If the pressure gets large enough, your sorrow will turn into diamonds".