On her 2017 album Music for People in Trouble, Susanne Sundfør shifted from the electronic art pop of her previous work to a more acoustic folk sound that foregrounded her lyrics about global strife. The Norwegian singer-songwriter’s follow-up, Blómi, isn’t as thematically sprawling, nor is it a return to the masterful synth-pop of 2015’s Ten Love Songs. Rather, the album is a spacious, ambient-folk meditation on optimism and purpose with a widescreen perspective of humanity.
As a collection of songs, Blómi lacks both the drama and catchiness of Sundfør’s past efforts, but her goals here are decidedly different. The album revolves around inspiration, edification, and comfort, all befitting of the title—which means “to bloom” in Norwegian—and serving as a marked departure from earlier songs such as the urgent “Accelerate” and lovelorn “Undercover.”
In her pursuit of solace, Sundfør draws on the worship music of various cultures for inspiration. “Leikara Ljó∂” channels the resilience of gospel and spirituals with handclaps and chants that spring out of an extended, hummed intro and bring to mind the raucous joy of the Scottish group Young Fathers. And “Alyosha,” in which Sundfør finds hope in a hopeless world because of love, takes cues from Celtic folk and boasts Blómi’s most memorable melody. Even the opening track, “Orð Vǫlu”—one of three spoken-word pieces on this 10-track album—is indebted to new age spirituality and music.
Blómi’s production, which is in turns ethereal and earthen, further underscores Sundfør’s spiritual view of human interconnectedness. “Ashera’s Song” opens with what sounds like a space opera, with muffled breaths from inside a spacesuit and starry ping effects. These flourishes coalesce into a melody that morphs in a way that feels almost improvisational, all with nearly indistinct lyrics and piano accompaniment evocative of Debussy.
The cosmic tenor of these early songs gives way to more grounded, but no less beautiful, sounds later in the album. “Rūnā,” a brightly colored, Enya-indebted song about renewal (“Open your eyes and begin again”), is punctuated by delicate piano and acoustic guitar. Other earthly sounds include a saxophone solo on the soulful “Fare Thee Well” and the much less mellifluous—in fact, skin-crawling—buzzing of insects that closes the otherwise luxuriant “Alyosha.”
Hearing this sonic progression feels like watching life from space, recognizing our smallness, and coming back to Earth with a new, more enlightened appreciation for quotidian details. Blómi’s overarching theme that love is essential to the human condition is both life-affirming and predictable: “From the ashes of sorrow/We will rise again,” Sundfør sings on the title track. But relative to the musician’s entire body of work, the album’s unflagging optimism and embrace of new age ambience are joyously therapeutic.
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