With Fragile as a Trademark

by Peter Steen-Christensen
Published: Nollarton, No 7 - 2004
Translated by hegude

No, in fact I didn't want to meet her. I didn't want to share my Stina Nordenstam with anybody, not even with her.

This interview was made for Totally Dublin magazine on Ireland, where it was previously published.

Why couldn't it be like before, when the inquiry about making an interview was simply being denied, whereupon you could keep on spend time with her music instead of learning to know her as a person? No, instead I was supposed to interview someone who actually doesn't like being interviewed, and who, when she despite of that is being interviewed, always has to answer the question why she so rarely gives interviews. Furthermore, I was almost scared to death that my relation to her would be broken forever.

Stina is a little bit of a secret I've kept. It's music that I never tell anybody about. It's music that I never play for anyone. Her often wistful, sad and beautiful music can bring out feelings you want to keep to yourself. But now I'm obviously supposed to tell about it for anyone who wants to listen, to people who either never will understand, or to others who also just want to keep her to themselves.

You may call her "Greta Garbo of Swedish music", "Billie Holiday of Birkastan" or even "the Sparrow from Minsk" (but then you're totally talking through your hat), but please don't call her singer-songwriter. I strongly object when she, however in lack of alternatives, is putting herself into that trade. Yet I can't find a better answer myself. But I think we can skip the categorization. Her toned-down pop music, which is alternately screwed up and beautiful, and sometimes colored by blue jazz influences is very characteristic.

But I still think that her music bow sounds very Swedish, I don't mean "Svensson-Swedish" (Svensson is the most common family name in Sweden, at least everyone believe it is), more of "Whole range, from magnificent nature to small archipelago island-Swedish". She is knitted jumpers. She is rain falling on your windowsill. At least, for me she is. I think most of her listeners have both their own relation to her, and their own associations.

When I meet her on an autumn-chilly Sunday afternoon at Kungsholmen in Stockholm I hardly recognize her. Not that I've ever taken any bigger notice of how she looks. She was certainly quite cute in the inner sleeve of This Is, but I just haven't cared. Now she doesn't wear a wig, or if she does it must be very short and realistic, and both to looks and personality she quite matches my picture of her. I consider for a while if I'll let her be the person who has written the music that I listen to when I'm alone.

I decide to go for it.

If someone who didn't have a clue who you were, got to listen to your music, what picture do you think they would get of you?

- That I was emotional… Small and short. Not that I would be big and big-breasted… I don't know. You tell me.

Something like that. Maybe not so short but small…

-And dainty?

Rather fragile.

-That's my trademark I guess.

But isn't that a picture that's quite close to the truth?

-Yes, I guess it's not a misunderstanding. Some of my friends think it becomes too personal to listen to my music.

I was a bit afraid that my picture of you, or rather my relation to your music would change after we've met.

-Well, will it?

I don't know yet.

-But does your picture match?

I think it's matching pretty well. I knew about this before, but while listening to your music you may not think that you're into climbing and such things.

-You think I'd be more tranquil. I think my music is autonomous, self-calming. That it has a real strength, but still something very lonely too. The original situation, of which I had to get myself this self-solace, was a kind of threat level and a lot of things that has happened all through my life. Maybe I expose myself for danger as a contrast to that calm the music gives me, do you see what I mean? I'm not the kind of person who moves out to the country, start to surround herself with beautiful things, drinking tea.

However, Stina did move out to the Archipelago of Stockholm. She stayed there for a whole year, felt really bad, went into the woods sometimes, tried to paint, moved back, and, if I'm right, tried to feel really bad. The result was the album Dynamite.

I read once that you didn't really like your own music, I was really disappointed. What's that supposed to mean?

-Haha, I mean, as a music consumer, I don't buy records from singer-songwriters, hardly even records with vocals at all…

But you're not a singer-songwriter…

-What's that, then?

I don't know. You're in your own category, the one that all bands and singers believe they're in, but they're not.

-I've thought about that if I wasn't me, I wouldn't like it. it's too direct for my own taste, haha…
What kind of music do you listen to?

-Mostly when I buy records…, when I rent dvds, several times a week, I think that I have to buy some new records and then I go to their new-records-section and listen to all that I don't recognize but I rarely find anything.

What's the best you've bought lately?

-That must be someone called Lhasa. I rarely find good music that has singing in it.
-I used to like Hiphop a lot, but after a while you get so tired, it's so hard to disregard the lack of content in the lyrics, that you'll become totally overwrought.

Will I ever see you perform live?

-I think so, but it may take a couple of years, though. I've never got the point, I haven't understood why, It hasn't felt exciting. It's so obvious, the total difference, the process when I record is so far away from performing on stage. But some years ago I however started to think about it, because I couldn't really accept that I kept on saying no all the time. I felt that I'd give it a try, so I put together a band. I had a tour booked up, but it never came off. I found that it wasn't enough. In a way, the arrangement was a bit far-fetched. I'd love to find approaches so it would become interesting, but then I felt that if I would realize it, I had to find a completely different solution. I can't just have my band, standing singing my own songs. I have to make it more exciting for myself somehow. If I had the answer, I would do it of course.

Couldn't you perform all alone?

-Me and a guitar? That must be the most stupid idea I've ever heard. No, it has to be something, a meeting or something exciting. Otherwise I could just as well get up and stand there naked… Hey, why don't you take off your clothes and go over there to Konsum (Swedish Food Store), don't you think that would be appreciated…

Out of all I know about you, I think the oddest thing is your cover album with songs that you dislike, wouldn't it be more natural to do covers of songs you do like?

-Why? It just wouldn't work, it has to be some kind of challenge. It can't be too close, or slightly too good. It's much better when it's kept on distance, in a way, then I can approach and invent a relationship from zero. It's becoming much more exciting, it would be too claustrophobic and gooey to potter about in your own garden, "well, isn't that singer so cheerful and jaunty?".

It has been intensive, with a lot of traveling for Stina lately. She has travelled around Europe, given 25 interviews in connection with the release of The World Is Saved. That's something she's never done before, but she tells me that it all went pretty well.

-Germany was the worst. That was my first stop so maybe I was a little tense. And I had problems with the language, they don't speak English very well. It becomes really dull, you know, they're asking something that from the beginning is a simplification, then I was a bit unsure about the whole situation… and then it turned out to be a very weird conversation.

What do you think about the reactions from home?

-This Friday I was totally traumatized. My record had been reviewed in Aftonbladet and Expressen. I went to buy the papers in the morning, and then I read it, and it lived up to my expectations, or even a little better. I may have thought it was surprisingly favorable but then I didn't think more about that, and then I did a lot of other things, then I discovered that my voice didn't really bear and had become a little shaky. It was like being in some state of shock.

How come?

-I still don't know. Maybe it's hard… Maybe it was because they thought it was so good.

Are you satisfied with the reviews?

-I don't know, it's far beyond if I'm satisfied or not because it's so subjective what this certain person likes, but overall, in every review I've read, it's quite a lot, there is some kind of kindliness that I've never felt before. After my first albums it felt like everyone was annoyed at me. They didn't get it, they wondered "what the hell is this?", they thought it was outrageous somehow, "A baby's voice and bla bla bla", people were so irritated. People didn't think it was for real, they thought it was some kind of trick.

But does it still feel important what the journalists are thinking?

-When it was like that in the beginning I thought, OK, it will pass eventually. They can't continue being irritated on the same thing over and over, after a while they'll get used to it and say "this is quality bla bla bla", "strong character", "personality"…

Maybe nowadays, there are less in this category that will never understand, that's writing record's reviews. Or maybe it's as simple as people has stopped being irritated about the baby's voice and instead want to call it her "personal voice". As far as I'm concerned, I simply think that she's making beautiful music. And although my "relationship" with Stina Nordenstam did bear even after we had our "serious talk", It would take a lot before I'll share her with anyone again.