The late, late, but promised review of a Norwegian Treasure...

Ok so this last month was a pretty quiet one on the blog front for which I eternally apologise, I guess October was such a big, bold and fantastic month with some awesome gigs including Joshua Radin, Goodtimes Goodtimes, Strange Folks that November was always going to be a lull, in fact I haven't been out to any live gigs for weeks...that's becoming quite torturous now! I will put it right soon. Aligned with that I've been a bit self-absorbed with a project which I can't yet speak of but some of you know about so consequently I haven't been at my communicative best.

But in all of that excitement towards the end of October and the distractions of late I forgot to blog about someone's album who I promised publicly to review...on my own blog...so tonight's entry and the first of a new month goes to the stunningly beautiful and totally amazing Ragz Nordset who is still winning the award by a country mile for most breathtaking and mindblowing acoustic performance of the year 2009...in the made up awards that I have yet to define or get corporate sponsorship for...


So for those of you who caught my blogs at the end of October (when I was blogging lots) Ragz played a set at The Bedford before I saw the Strange Folks guys. She came on stage, I'll admit to being a bit distracted until this about 5 seconds into the set when she began to sing and I think the expression "jaws to the floor" pretty much summed it up completely.

I'm not a big one for female vocalists, call it sexist, call it boring, call it gay, call it what you like a lot of female vocals just don't connect with me....probably because I'm a guy...but Ragz just floored me. So at the end of the set and having felt like I'd witnessed something immeasurably brilliant I sought out Ragz, had a quick chat and purchased a copy of both EPs...god I love a CD....there's nothing better than a physical CD, beats a download any day (I've said that before I think)!

So the next day I popped both onto my iPod and wanted to see if the EPs cemented my bewilderment further and a month on and having forgotten to blog about it...the answer is....YES, they most certainly did.

Little Stings (which is available on iTunes) is quite an interesting EP, there's something quite dynamic about it in the sense that it feels somewhat supercharged with a singer trying many different style of songs and different applications of her amazing vocals in search for the perfect mix either that or just purely showing of the diversity and complexity of her vocals, songwriting and music playing ability.


To give you an example Where It's Gone and You in the Back are real singer/songwriter songs, More reminds me of a classical ballad a sort of Mariah track (although a lot more understated). When I hear Run it reminds me of something very theatrical and the music has this certain Russian/Polish/Eastern European/Jewish vibe about it. Feel Something is kind of hard to place, it's a nice song but I can't put it anywhere.

Finally we come to Breathe, the last track of the EP which is a live recording. Undoubtedly in my opinion the best track on the EP. It hit me the first time I listened through that this was amazing, it was Ragz the singer/songwriter who stole a piece of me, killed it sweetly and sent it to musical heaven back in October. It's just the most amazing song, amazing vocals, it's just utterly beautiful a true gem of a song.

So then we flip over to the second EP, Love You Still which feels like we've seen Ragz grow and move forward musically settling into a formula that perpetuates amazing music in abundance...wow I'm throwing big words out there tonight!!!!

The EP truly is Ragz the accomplished singer/songwriter at her very, very best. Love You Still the title track is amazingly moving, it actually caught me a bit the first time I heard it properly, it just connected with me in a big way, the sentiments resonate with me. This theme of beautiful and mesmerising music flows right through Hold On and Oh Oh and then into No Fairytale which feels like an astonishingly personal piece of songwriting.



The all too short EP rounds off with Mitt....hold on I need to get my iPod for a bit of Norwegian...Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker...which translates to My Heart Always Wanders...no don't be daft I don't speak Norwegian, I did a bit of research and came up with this as a resource :-) Anyways Ragz here takes a psalm/hymn and uses it beautifully to show off her voice Acapella on what's actually quite a challenging track, and again pulls it off amazingly.

And you know what really truly baffles me most about Ragz, is why someone hasn't signed her on a major record deal. It's surely only a matter of time...it just has to be.

Ok that's me done for tonight, I feel I've finally fulfilled a promise I made and hopefully one day soon I'll be able to share some big an exciting news with the world...not quite yet...but soon I hope...there's an oncoming storm people...be prepared!

Nite all xxx