Some albums roar out of the speakers and tear at your guts. This timidly creeps out like a fluffy little kitten. But you just want to scoop it up and cuddle it all the same, making encouraging goo-goo noises and patting its pretty little head. Or maybe that’s just me then. Ames Room is a restrained album largely formed of understated vocals cooed over a threadbare but melodic and perfectly formed sound collage – delicate and wispy as spun sugar. It somehow seems appropriate at this time of Christmas wonderment, evoking thoughts of twinkling fireside reflections and giving in to the nagging lure of winter slumber.

Silje Nes is a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter who grew up in the small community of Leikanger on the banks of the stunningly scenic Sognefjord, before moving to the comparative metropolis that is Bergen. The natural beauty of her surroundings infuses her work. Songs are breezy when upbeat, rumbling like distant thunder when brooding, and beats land like drops of snowmelt. She began by recording onto her laptop no more than a couple of years ago, with no previous experience of any instrument other than piano – thus often stumbling across unconventional sounds. Apart from the opening track, this debut release is entirely self-recorded and produced. The wealth of sampled musical noises include mechanical typewriters and blown bottles. She does perform live, though quite how she can capture the atmosphere here is only to be guessed at.

Imagine Bjork with a chill pill. Words are often hardly discernable: her voice used as texture not a mere means of delivery, but it just sounds lovely. Only “Giant Disguise” has a menacing shadowy fist of a repeated riff – but wrapped in a velvet glove. “Bright Night Morning” is wilfully hazy and charmingly stumbling with a hypnotic chorus, while “Dizzy Street” and the title track are pure ethereal pop distilled almost to nothingness. There are a trio of wordless soundscapes – not usually something to hold my attention, but here they fit into the bigger picture without being disruptive. At times they have something of Sigur Ros about them, with drunken brass and slow paced acoustic guitar.

Ames Room has been sneaking its way onto my playlist a whole lot recently. This is definitely a case of less is more, and bizarrely an album which makes a virtue out of making you feel drowsy. I’m left all Norwegian blue and pining for the fjords, and wondering just what will come from Silje Nes in the future.
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Links
Silje Nes [official site] [myspace]