Stina Wollter - Garden Songs (2018)

Stina Wollter really has an incredible breadth in her creation. She is an artist with many different modes of expression - painting, illustrations and drawing - and is also a teacher in image creation at eg. Gerlesborg School in Bohuslän and the Nordic Watercolor Museum. On Instagram, with over 170,000 followers, she fights with body activism as the foundation, unabashedly, against prejudice and oppression in all its forms. She is out and lectures and can also be heard on Sweden's Radio, in the program Sundays with Stina (stops over the summer with previous sections available on SR Play) and in Body contact, an eight-part program series that makes contact with and highlights different bodies' stories. This fall, Stina Wollter debuted as a writer, with the book Around This Body, where, according to the publisher text, with “wide-open eyes and personal voice, she tells about people, meetings and events that affected her… and embarks on a kind of exploration in her own body's history. "

garden songs In anticipation of this body you can listen to Stina Walter's debut album, Garden songs, which was released in April. Producer is Pecka Hammarstedt while Stina Wollter stands for text and music together with her husband Micke Olsson. I am a bookmaker and I never write about music, but now I make an exception. If we start with the music itself then I really like Garden songs. I have few references in the music world to add to, but several songs, eg. The introduction home alone makes me think of Mavis Staples, an American rhythm & blues and gospel singer that I am very fond of. Staples has an even raspier voice and heavier arrangement but the feeling, it is the same! I have no idea what Wollter would like about this comparison but to me it is meant as a compliment of rank, because what it is about is that both make music that touches and somehow fills one. When it comes to the texts themselves, there are a couple of themes - skimming, reconciliation, finding their own voice, forgiving themselves to be able to move on, taking power over their lives and finding a life with glow and passion. Here are also great love songs - Garden song and I'm ready now, not to mention the little tearful Let me help you pack the bags, about letting a beloved child fly freely and trusting that it will do, but there are also where and when needed. The music very nicely enhances the content of the various songs, from the darker Leave my shame over the suggestive Down that road and upward duet This I Take to the bright, hopeful love songs...