Norwegian singer Susanna: 'I really loved the sound of Phil Lynott’s voice'
Susanna is at Triskel Christchurch in Cork on March 18. Picture: Signe Fuglesteg Luksengard
When singular vocalist and songwriter Susanna was growing up in Norway in the 1980s and '90s she was exposed to an impressively wide range of music. As well as having classical singing lessons, she heard religious and gospel music courtesy of her devoutly Lutheran parents; jazz and blues via her two elder brothers, who are also musicians; and Norwegian folk music in her small town of Kongsberg.
She also discovered a great deal of pop, rock and R&B by herself. “I listened to songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed, and singers such as Whitney Houston, Björk and Janet Jackson,” says 43-year-old Susanna Karolina Wallumrød (her full name), via a video call from her home in Oslo. “And then in my later teens I had a boyfriend who was a rock and roll guitar player – and along came bands like AC/DC, Kiss and Van Halen. Oh, and Thin Lizzy, of course.”
The Irish rock band had a strong impact on the young musician. “I really loved the melodies, and the groove and rhythms, and especially Phil Lynott’s playing and songwriting – and the sound of his voice. The music just went straight into me. It spoke to me. And still does.”
Susanna’s passion for Thin Lizzy’s music led in 2008 to her recording a spellbindingly original cover version of one of the band’s most popular songs, 'Jailbreak'. The opening track of Flower of Evil, an album that also includes pared-down interpretations of songs by, among others, Prince, Nico, Black Sabbath and ABBA, 'Jailbreak' was miraculously transformed by Susanna’s crystalline vocals and stripped-back piano playing from macho hell-raising anthem to delicate and plaintive lament.
While recognising that the song may not be Lynott’s finest hour lyrically, Susanna was intrigued to learn how 'Jailbreak' would sound in her musical world.
“I’m not that interested in singing very fast or very loud, but I do want the song to enter my system, to go through my body, so to speak, and to see what happens if I give it a female voice and place it in a different musical environment,” she says, in perfect English.
“Often I travel quite far with the song, but it just happens, naturally – it’s not intentional. I’m captured by these songs. And I try to stay faithful to them. It’s just that I dig so deep into the music that more and more things are revealed.”
Other immortal modern rock and pop classics that have received Susanna’s beautiful and beguiling treatments – sometimes with the addition of instruments such as electronics, strings and accordion – include Joy Division’s 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', Dolly Parton’s 'Jolene', and Nick Drake’s 'Which Will'.
They are re-imaginings that magically render old songs new and, because they are so resolutely individual, are intriguingly hard to place. It’s satisfyingly tricky to say exactly what Susanna’s inscrutable music is – experimental art pop, soulful singer-songwriting, slow-motion Nordic electronica, baroque folk, gothic torch-song jazz?
The range of projects she has worked on is similarly dizzying and diverse, and includes Garden of Earthly Delights, a record inspired by the “vivid, visionary and disturbing images” of medieval Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, and If Grief Could Wait, an album with Swiss harpist Giovanna Pessi on estimable German label ECM.
She has also collaborated with American alt-country/roots singer-songwriter Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, leading Norwegian jazz pianists Morten Qvenild and Tord Gustavsen, and dark-ambient and avant-drone guitarist and producer (and her husband) Helge Sten.
This month Susanna makes one of her all too infrequent visits to Ireland to showcase her most recent musical exploration, Baudelaire & Piano. Appearing at Triskel in Cork, the only Irish date in a European spring tour, Susanna will perform music she has written in response to the lyrical poetry of 19th-century French enfant terrible Charles Baudelaire, a darkly fearless and provocative force who’s also been an influence on musicians ranging from Debussy to The Doors, Patti Smith to Tyler, the Creator.
“I’ve always had a fascination with Baudelaire’s poetry, as it’s so rich in imagery and emotion – it’s like he had a direct line into all the horror and beauty of life, to the universal existential nature of being human,” she says.
“But it was a new English translation of [his most famous work] The Flowers of Evil by Anthony Mortimer that really made me fall for his poetry – and made me want to sing the lines I was reading. I started to hear melodies that went along with the words.”
Is there is a thread that connects the Baudelaire project to the rest of her work? “Well, I’m drawn to the melancholic, to life’s bigger and more serious questions, I guess,” she replies. “I’m drawn to art and music that has dared to make a difference, that has dared to say something about sorrow or death or loss or the more difficult sides to life.”
Augmented on stage by the eerie and evocative soundscapes of cassette-tape recordist and mixer Stina Stjern (and usually by theatrical eye make-up), Susanna says she is looking forward to returning to Triskel Christchurch, a venue she remembers from her previous appearance there at the 2012 Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.
“I often play in beautiful churches and quiet jazz clubs, with audiences that are thankfully prepared to sit down, really listen to the music, and take in something they haven’t heard before,” she says. “That could be Baudelaire’s sometimes raw and gritty poetry… or maybe a line like ‘Tonight there’s going to be a jailbreak’.” Susanna bursts out laughing. “Yeah, I really love those contrasts.”
- Susanna plays Triskel Christchurch, Cork on Saturday, March 18 (triskelartscentre.ie)
