(Indie, Alternative) Christina Rosenvinge - Foreign Land - 2004, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

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Christina Rosenvinge's second solo album was released after Dean Wareham announced the breakup of Luna, and a dedicated fan of this style of stylishly enervated Velvet Underground-influenced dream pop could almost think that the Spanish-Danish singer/songwriter had decided to pick up exactly where that band had left off. The eight songs on Foreign Land are beautifully hushed, with Rosenvinge's softly accented vocals (think Laetitia Sadier, not Nico) set against downtown New York art rock/pop all-stars including Smells Like label head Steve Shelley, Lee Ranaldo and guitarist Smokey Hormel, who adds a whiskey-soaked guest vocal to the moody "Submission." Other highlights include the spooky "Dream Room," which features overdubbed counterpoint vocals over an almost tribal, hypnotic tom-tom rhythm from Shelley, and the uncharacteristically poppy "King Size," which recalls Barbara Manning's skewed alt rock. A stronger album overall than her solo debut Frozen Pool, Foreign Land is stylish but not shallow and wispy without succumbing to twee-ness.
by Stewart Mason
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Though her native language is Spanish and her heritage Danish, singer-songwriter Christina Rosenvinge chooses English as the language to grace the mournful atmosphere of her folk-inspired dream pop. Foreign Land, her second full-length album, alludes to the multi-cultural musical background from which her songwriting extends while remaining personal and intimate.
Backed by members of Two Dollar Guitar and an almost invisible Lee Renaldo, Rosenvinge displays an obsessively simple creativity that’s neither flashy nor self-indulgent. She develops her ballads carefully, picking her way through meandering passages in fairly sparse arrangements. Though she’s clearly the cohesive mind behind these arrangements, she avoids centering the attention on herself, giving the songs an even, unhurried quality.
Rosenvinge's arrangements require close attention in order to uncover a complexity that isn't manifest at first glance. The relations between the songs masks as creative naivete, since many of the album's eight songs possess similar tempos and the same or closely related keys. The disc isn’t long enough for the similarities to become monotone, and more importantly, the pervasive structures aren't due to a lack of ideas. The absence of movement in the album’s second song, “36,” is contented, self-reflecting. Urgent loss and paranoia grows throughout the panicked minimalist dirge "German Heart," which couples plucked violin strings and quiet electronic clicks that intensify as Rosenvinge's chanting rises registers. As a whole, the album plays like variations on a musical theme.
Songs like "Dream Room," the first track on the album to switch up the standard arrangement of steady guitar and gentle cymbals, don't revolutionize the ballad structure. Rather, they complement the previous tracks by re-envisioning how the instruments differently interact: the drummer now sans cymbals and heavy on the toms; the acoustic guitar changed for an electric awash with reverb. They rearrange order like the chaos of a dream, random synapses firing across neural pathways: now the stranger is a lover, now the hairbrush is a gun.
Be sure to listen for the oddly conventional duet with Smokey Hormel (Beck, Smokey and Miho) on "Submission" - one part ballad, two parts Broadway love song, the two sound like an indie rock version of an Alan Mencken musical number. Rosenvinge begs "Use me" and "Make something pretty of me" as if the two were one and the same. The sunny tone of the duet belies the tenuously dark domination she desires.
Her pixie-esque crooning in a Scandinavian accent immediately recalls the charismatic French chanteuses of last year's Nouvelle Vague record, or even a stripped-down version of Bjork. When Rosenvinge catches the right wave - not too cutesy or too fey - these songs ride the tension between distant and intimate. Love letters from abroad.
By Joel Calahan
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It’s been a while since we’ve heard from this Spanish talent, but given the growth in her songwriting skills and ability to create an even more chilling effect through her vocals, it’s been worth the wait since her Frozen Pool debut dropped four years ago. Foreign Land still contains a lot of the same elements that made her previous work such a well-crafted pop composition, including the return of Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley. However, it’s the more ambitious use of a string section in the opening "Off Screen” that really makes you take notice. This effort is a tad more melancholy and toned down, which works well with Rosenvinge’s sleepy European vocals, especially the hypnotic vibes and xylophone of "Lost in D,” which actually rolls into a lovely carnival of sorts. "German Heart” shows this songstress at her most minimal, practically singing a cappella to what sounds like banging coconuts, but her voice reaches this fairytale pitch that works best with minimalism. Rosenvinge’s voice is very beautiful and her simplicity in crafting songs just makes her all the more adorable. There’s a sense of shyness and intimacy with the songs on Foreign Land, and the album’s quickness and bare-bones instrumentation just adds to a theory that Rosenvinge doesn’t want to reveal too much of herself, staying just below the surface. Still, with the powerful effect that upscale numbers like "Off Screen,” it would be nice to see her rise to a much higher level of performance.
By Noel Dix
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Latin teen-pop diva and Sonic Youth protege returns.
This is Christina Rosenvinge’s second American release, after 2001’s Frozen Pool, and although she’s working with Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Lee Ranaldo once again, the influences are overwhelmingly European, as befits her Hispano-Danish heritage.
She may sound like a largely acoustic Stina Nordenstam, a less retro Keren Ann or (at times) a less playful Coco Rosie – all would be good descriptions of this album – but Rosenvinge is slowly asserting her own personality. Her songwriting has matured noticeably in three years, and when "36" finds her singing about aging gracefully, it’s clear she’s speaking from experience.
by TIMOTHY HECK