Her comeback album Dark Hearts has earned Annie Spellemann nominations and solid ratings. For her, songwriting has always been the most important thing.
/ 16/04/2021 / Kristian DugstadAnnie has received solid and well-deserved attention for her comeback album Dark Hearts.
Perhaps not so surprising, considering the pop icon status she acquired in the early 2000s. With songs like Chewing gum og Heartbeat Anne Lilia Berge Strand was praised by Pitchfork, awarded the Spellemann award and immortalized in the computer game The Sims 2.
As most interviews and reviews pointed out in the wake of last year's album release, it has been eleven years since she released her previous full-length, Don't Stop.
But, the stay has neither diminished the quality nor the interest. And tonight Annie can walk away with two Spellemenn.
Dark Hearts is essentially a collaboration between Annie and songwriter and producer Stefan Storm. The album clearly differs from her previous releases, in that it invites solitary listening into the wee hours, rather than a dance floor.
– The starting point was that I wanted to make a quieter album. A listening album, more than a club album. When Stefan and I met, we immediately noticed that the chemistry was there, she says on the phone from Bergen.
She has described the album several times as the soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist. And film is undoubtedly a recurring theme when Annie talks about her impulses.
– Film is the biggest artistic inspiration for me. If I watch a good film, I get hugely inspired. Stefan and I had very similar references, and new songs often started with us sitting and talking about images and video. For example, there are clear elements taken from Twin Peaks.
Together, she and Storm constructed a clear visual universe, which became the foundation of the artistic process.
– It became our little Dark Hearts-world, where I disappeared into. It was very good to be there, and there we could create a lot.
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It's been a long time since the beginning of Dark Hearts, in Berlin, one summer in the mid-2010s. In the meantime, Annie has managed to have two children and move back home to Bergen.
She and Storm have been exploring and developing their Dark Hearts-the world wide wide. But, with over a decade since Annie's last album, the return to the surface wasn't entirely nerve-wracking.
– I had no expectations at all about the reception. Both Stefan Storm and I were very much into this world that we created, but it was no given that anyone else would think it was particularly cool, she says.
Fortunately, the new musical universe also appealed to the outside world. The album received very good reviews, and when the nominations for Spellemann 2020 were announced in February, Annie received two – in the categories Pop og Songwriter of the year.
– It felt absolutely fantastic to get such good feedback, and to be nominated for best musician in those very categories. Very rewarding.
When Aftenposten reported Dark Hearts last fall, Robert Hoftun Gjestad wrote that "The soundscape is new. But the quality of what is served is as good as before."
One could argue that a solid songwriter is a solid songwriter, regardless of what costume the songs are dressed in. And for Annie, it is precisely the composition that is at the center of her work.
– I really enjoy performing too, but being in the studio and developing the songs is the most important thing. Writing the music has been my starting point for becoming a musician and an artist. That's what means the most to me. It's always been that way.
She has felt the need to express herself musically since childhood. Music has in return given her a career and a way of life. Today, this life experience fills her music with new perspectives and emotions.
– I believe that you can hear where a person really stands and what they are thinking, through the music they write, she says.
