erasing clouds
 

Cake on Cake, I See No Stars

reviewed by dave heaton

"Your dreams will come true", the first line of the album goes. It's sung by a female voice over a kaleidoscopic array of music-box melodies and lightly pounding beats. And then the comes the punchline: the single word "…today", sung over and over by a cascade of voices.

It's all the same voice, actually: that of Swedish singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Helena Sundin, who is Cake on Cake. She sings her delicate yet not lightweight pop songs in a beguiling way, and places them in an elaborate setting, filled with pretty and varied textures. The way the songs are arranged and performed has a very real, very alive sort of presence to it. Yet there's also always a lullaby, child's dreamland atmosphere about the album. That presence + imagination equation makes the first song's line about dreams coming true today feel so appropriate.

Many of Cake on Cake's songs are based around a simple sentiment – often one expression of a fear or hope or want – that's turned into a colorful daydream through Sundin's singing and playing. The album has a straightforward emotional force to it, that's coupled with its adventurous musical flight of fancy. Sundin plays a bit of everything: piano, flutes, electronics, guitar, xylophone, tables, bells, kazoo, glass animals and bottles, and more. Her voice is fragile like a child's yet has a sophisticated emotional range which drives the songs through you even more.

"I would like a new orchestra to play," Sundin sings on one track. But at the same time she's creating that imaginary orchestra herself, from glass and wire and string and metal. And she's using it to transport us to so many strange and beautiful lands, while at the same time punching us in the heart with her voice, saying loud-and-clear 'I'm lonely', or 'I'm scared', or 'I hope that…'

{www.desolationrecords.com}


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