Sofie Sörman - Vindarna

Sofie Sörman knows very well what she owes to Sweden. She likes to remind people that in this country where she was born, “the voice is part of life from childhood”. As with so many of his compatriots, we sing from generation to generation, in a society which has given women a place equal to that of men. Living in Paris
for almost 20 years, she has not forgotten the years spent between popular songs, classical music, pop, rock or jazz, from tradition to modernity. On the contrary: this heritage is present in a very personal expression of which Ripples, his previous album, was the sensitive testimony. In Citizen Jazz magazine, Michel Arcens wrote: “Behind the apparent ease,
beneath a crystalline prettiness that one would be wrong to take for banality, one discovers intelligence, emotion, and even a certain anxiety. The stuff that real singers are made of ”. It was all said and done and what went for Ripples applies to Vindarna, his successor.

A "real" singer indeed, because it is not just a question of a voice. With Sofie Sörman, the soul resonates to challenge the meaning of life, along a journey that is as artistic as it is existential. But today, encouraged in this by the reception that the French public had reserved for the songs performed in Swedish during the Ripples tour, she goes further. Surrounded by the same musicians, a trio cultivating minimalism with extreme sensitivity and a lot of restraint - because suggestion is essential in Armel Dupas (piano), Joan Eche-Puig (double bass) and Karl Jannuska (drums) - it is a repertoire sung exclusively in her native language that she delivers with Vindarna.
This title, which means "the wind" and whose namesake composition appears at the opening, owes nothing to chance. In our murky and uncertain world, there is a call for resistance in the face of fear of a storm that may arise. Echoing this promise, we find at the end of the disc a "Vals till Sia" which Sofie Sörman wrote for her daughter then only a few months old, to music
by Armel Dupas. A melody with delicate accents, typical of the world of the pianist, and the theme of birth as a sign of hope.

Between these two compositions which surround the singer's universe, we discover amazed, sometimes hazy stories, which tell of love ("Visa från Järna", "Tystare än natten"), life ("Leva nu", " Visa i Molom ”), the fragility of happiness (“ Grimasch om morgonen ”). We meet angels (“Din ängels sång”) and even the devil disguised as a musician (“Horgalåten”). The disc is a celebration of the
nature and its elements (“Under rönn och syren”), to culminate with “Iskogens djupa stilla ro”, which will be translated as “In the deep silence of the forest”.
This traditional Danish, already adapted by some jazzmen, such as Oscar Peterson and Ulf Wakenius, is the subject of a majestic adaptation, almost a cappella. Sofie Sörman's voice emits a deep vibration, without unnecessary effects or cumbersome pathos. It is a song of great beauty which, by itself, gives the measure of
talent of the one who, over the course of Vindarna's eleven compositions, crosses the range of emotions - between joy and worry - with the humble determination that we already knew her.

Vindarna is perhaps a turning point for Sofie Sörman in that the singer deviates from a specifically jazz language. Not that she is turning away from the latter, but because she wishes to open her music to the influences that have always constituted it: traditional songs, songs with more pop accents, between the 18th century
century and 60s. "The birth of Sia reinforced my desire to return to my roots, to singing and to writing lyrics in Swedish, and opened me to new emotions". More than a musical affirmation, Vindarna is the record of a human achievement, of a journey to the heart of life. What we could call an achievement, in the philosophical sense of the word, like a dream that has become
reality, an assumed desire.

Denis Desassis - Citizen Jazz (www.citizenjazz.com)