Frida Hyvönen – Bush Hall, London 05/02/09

12 February 2009, 09:13 | Written by Adam Elmahdi

(Live)

It must be something in the water. Sweden seems to produce charming purveyors of joyous melodies and swoonsome harmonies by the dozen, and Frida Hyvönen is yet another fine addition to the country’s impeccable musical tradition. I wasn’t entirely won over by her latest release, Silence is Wild (review) but as is often the case, her dramatic, ostentatious piano balladry really found its mark live.

The bespectacled, startlingly blonde songstress’ stock-in-trade is her conversational lyrical style, which eschews trite rhymes and perfectly measured metre for detailed, eccentrically delivered narratives that come across more like short stories put to music. Whilst at times this formula grew thin on record, it works better in a live setting with Frida’s charismatic delivery disguising some of her clunkier lines. Clearly nervous, the easy wit she displays in her songs didn’t always come across and her banter was limited, but nonetheless she came across as thoroughly charming, and her spontaneous cello-backed paean to the sound guy during a technical fault was brilliantly creative.

Highlights included ‘Dirty Dancing’, excellently bolstered by the harmonies of her backing musicians, and ‘December’, whose vaudevillian melody doesn’t quite mask the tragedy of the tale underneath- you can’t help but feel slightly guilty tapping your feet to a song about abortion…If there was one critique, it’s that ‘London!’ was disappointingly thrown away without ceremony when it clearly would have been the perfect closer but that apart, it’s one of the most impressive performances I’ve seen in a long while.

Support came from Joe Gideon and The Shark, a brother-and-sister duo who sounded like the White Stripes with a more bohemian edge. Wouldn’t be particularly worth mentioning if not for the revelatory drumming of “The Shark,” who struck me as a curious cross of Meg White, Mariam Wallentin and an infuriated octopus- visceral, intense, and marvellously enchanting.