The second album of the Swedish, Malmö-based quartet We Float takes a new direction. Three years after releasing its debut album, «Silence» (Havtorn Records, 2015) that focused on dreamy and intimate jazz songs with pop sensibility, We Float, who recently won Sweden’s Public Radio’s jazzkatten awards as the group of the year, offers now «progressive» pop and rock songs with a sensibility of a jazz group.
«What’s Really Real?» was conceived by the Norwegian leader of We Float, bass player Anne Marte Eggen, who wrote all the lyrics, music and did the arrangements. But in order to explore the new sound, each of We Float musicians – lead vocalist Linda Bergström, keyboards player Fanny Gunnarsson and drummer Filip Bensefelt, expanded their sonic palette with vintage keyboards and assorted percussion instruments. Five guest musicians, most notably among them guitarist Samuel Hällkvist, were invited to color the musical arrangements.
The songs of «What’s Really Real?» are described by Eggen as «an exercise in the art of being human». These songs relate to one’s own always subjective truth, and how these kind of personal truths and experiences affect our relationships with others, affect ourselves and our surroundings. Obviously, the highly melodic musical envelope of the new songs is far richer and more dramatic than the one of «Silence», encompassing the still dreamy delivery of vocalist Bergström with nuanced layered of sounds and driving rhythms and enjoying the masterful guitar work of Hällkvist who injects a biting edge to the carefully-crafted arrangements. But more important, these introspective songs introduce a new sense of urgency and a touching awareness of how fragile life and our relationships with others can be. Impressive songs like «Melt Away» and the most beautiful «Inside» articulate best the powerful emotional appeal of We Float new direction.
Eyal Hareuveni
Anne Marte Eggen (b, synth, dan trang, backing v), Linda Bergström (v, glockenspiel, microkorg, backing v), Fanny Gunnarsson (Rhodes, p, org, acc, backing v), Filip Bensefelt (dr, perc), Samuel Hällkvist (g), Elina Nygren (viola, vio), Ellen Pettersson (flh), Jens Persson (as), Petter Hängsel (tb)
