New Music: Brimheim – Somebody Else

Swedish avant-pop adventurer Brimheim embarks on a new voyage with Somebody Else, a second introduction to her Fables LP.

The track signals a move away from the concept behind 2024’s RATKING album, and came about after a period of creative struggle. Somebody Else and recent single, My Collection, were written in the same week, as part of an amazing artistic flowering.

Somebody Else doesn’t, in fact, sound like anyone else. You could possibly compare it to Susanne Sundfør, though its heartbreak and discontent are out in the open and delivered to the listener in such an airy, confident manner that any introspection finds its way into your psyche almost painlessly and imperceptibly.

Maybe a better starting point would be the music of artists like French icon Barbara. Somebody Else is pop with home truths and dark tales told in a breezy, lush style. That renders it a bit out of sync with modern style, but if the most immediate comparisons that come to mind for me are Barabra, or Juliette Gréco – or Ane Brun in the current era, Brimheim doesn’t need to chase fans – they’ll come running.

“My previous record was deliberately eclectic, drawing from many contrasting references,” says Brimheim about the creation of Somebody Else and its place within Fables. “This time, I wanted cohesion. I’ve tried to accomplish that through working with a loose set of dogmas: everything played by hand, no pitch correction on vocals, and lyrics needed to have an element of the extraordinary. The result is an organic record that, to me, feels out of time.”

She adds about the upcoming LP, “Fables is a search for what is human and for what still holds meaning — within myself and in our dystopian times. I make art and music to make sense of a foundational feeling of alienation. With this record I was especially interested in recapturing the lost magic and imagination I had access to as a child.”

Brimheim plays a sold-out show at Hotel Cecil in Copenhagen on the 29th of January, ahead of the release of Fables via Tambourhinoceros on the 5th of February. The album, which had support from Koda’s Cultural Funds, is available to order now on Bandcamp in gatefold vinyl (arctic blue and black) and CD editions.

Header photo by jaskobobar