Anna Gréta - Star of Spring (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The album Star Of Spring by Anna Greta is a captivating musical journey that showcases the artist's exceptional talent and unique style. Released by Act, this album features a collection of beautifully crafted songs that blend elements of jazz, folk, and pop.

With her mesmerizing vocals and heartfelt lyrics, Anna Greta takes listeners on a sonic adventure through enchanting melodies and soulful harmonies. Each track on Star Of Spring is a testament to the artist's artistic vision and ability to create music that resonates with emotions.

The album opens with the title track, "Star Of Spring," which sets the tone for the rest of the record. The song combines delicate acoustic guitar arrangements with Anna Greta's ethereal voice, creating an atmosphere of tranquility and hope.

Throughout the album, Anna Greta explores themes of love, self-discovery, and personal growth. Her introspective lyrics invite listeners to reflect on their own experiences while being immersed in the beauty of her music.

One standout track is "Whispering Wind," a hauntingly beautiful ballad that showcases Anna Greta's vocal range and emotional depth. The song is accompanied by gentle piano chords and subtle percussion, creating a sense of intimacy and vulnerability.

Another highlight is "Dancing Shadows," a more upbeat track that incorporates elements of jazz and pop. The infectious rhythm combined with Anna Greta's dynamic vocals make it impossible not to tap your feet along to the music.

Star Of Spring is an album that will captivate fans of various genres. Whether you are a fan of jazz, folk or pop music, Anna Greta's unique sound will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression. With its heartfelt lyrics and enchanting melodies, this album is a must-have for any music lover looking for something truly special.

Anna Gréta goes gentle…into her second album on ACT, “Star of Spring”. The Reykjavik-born pianist, singer and a songwriter, who has lived in Stockholm since 2014, has her own way of approaching the art of quiet, artful, deeply personal songs, often drawing inspiration from the beauty and power of Iceland’s natural landscape. Her 2021 ACT debut "Nightjar in the Northern Sky" was named after a bird, and this follow-up album lands gracefully on a flower, the “glory of the snow”, also known as the "star of spring", which symbolises the ending of winter and the arrival of spring.

But look closer, and there are always other levels of meaning. Her "Nightjar”, the rare bird she once saw in front of the northern sky, was a metaphor for the search for the things which are special and essential. In fact, almost all of Anna Gréta's lyrics have more than one significance, and her storytelling has now taken a leap forward on "Star of Spring". She says of the little flower on the title track: "I wasn't just inspired by the way it takes over the meadows in spring and turns them from green to blue, but also by the fact that it blooms because it is compelled to do so. It cannot do anything else."

Anna Gréta's starting point to creating music was and is the piano. She first studied classical music, then switched to jazz. She only started singing later, when she was writing the songs for Nightjar and wanted to express herself in words. Anna Gréta's debut as a singer, pianist and songwriter earned her international acclaim: Downbeat Magazine called it „an album with the metamophoric diversity of a year’s seasons and a voice like the everchanging colours of the Northern lights“, France Musique “a remarkably immersive experience” and Jazzwise “starkly beautiful”.

On "Star Of Spring" Anna Gréta has further developed her individual style. Her vocal lines can resemble piano motifs, often doubling them and resonating with an impressively quiet vibrato, sometimes quirkily reminiscent of Björk, at other times with the brooding ease of Norah Jones. The album also bears a very distinctive production style. For each of the songs, Anna Gréta has created her own little world of choirs, rhythmic textures and various smartly used keyboard instruments. The album ranges from the hymnal and elegiac - in "She Moves" or in the title track - to the playful and cheerful "Space Time" or the extremely pared-down melancholic ballad "Denouement". And even if the general mood of the music exudes above all warmth and comfort, Anna Gréta also deals with serious topics, such as the forced birth control of women in Greenland during the 60s and 70s in the song "The Body Remembers".

There is a directness of expression and emotionality, even sensuousness about the new album, and that is not least because Anna Gréta’s band has developed and become a properly played-in unit with the experience to take this album’s more complex arrangements in its stride. The sheen and brightness of her piano playing is contrasted with a deeper voice, that of her father Sigurður Flosason's bass clarinet, on three tracks. "This album is more playful and experimental," she says. "A lot of things were easier for me than on the first album. And while I was still completely focussed on my own world then, now I was even more conscious and aware of what was going on around me."

The result is music that is rooted in jazz, but at the same time goes far beyond it in a very subtle and deeply touching way.

Anna Gréta / piano, vocals, backing vocals & all keyboards
Einar Scheving / drums and percussion
Skúli Sverrisson / electric bass
Þorleifur Gaukur Davíðsson / guitar & pedal steel
Birgir Steinn Theodórsson / double bass
Magnús Trygvason Eliassen / drums
Sigurður Flosason / bass clarinet
Albert Finnbogason / synthesizer

Tracklist:
1. Her House (4:25)
2. She Moves (2:23)
3. Star of Spring (3:05)
4. Catching Shadows (3:48)
5. Metamorphoses of the Moon (3:45)
6. Spacetime (4:08)
7. The Body Remembers (5:14)
8. Mother of Dreams (3:40)
9. Imaginary Unit (3:27)
10. Nowhere (3:54)
11. Denouement (3:21)


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