Music Review: Anders Jörnesten, ‘Astrology’
The Swedish singer-songwriter’s debut full-length album is a stripped-down contemplation of life, nature and love.
It feels fitting to be reviewing a Swedish artist’s album from my Minnesota home for a couple of reasons. First, of course, this is the U.S. state with the highest percentage of Swedish-heritage residents (over 7%; less than the peak of 12% in 1910 but still significant). And the way Anders Jörnesten describes Sweden in a recent interview with Music Mecca resonates with my experience of my adopted home state:
“It’s pretty cold and dark here in the winters and the summers are really nice. … You are really living with the four seasons, and it gives you perspectives on both nature and humans. … Sometimes it makes you long for something else, especially in the winter when combined with darkness and cold. … But at the same time, I love living in Sweden, and that duality is somewhat typical for Swedes, I guess.”
And for Minnesotans, believe me. Those statements echo many many things I’ve said to and heard from my neighbors.
But the Minnesota-Sweden connection is just a coincidence. What really draws me about Jörnesten’s music is the melancholy contemplation in his lyrics, the spare instrumentation (often just a single acoustic guitar) and his unique voice. Raspy and gravelly at times, it should sound harsh, but there’s a gentleness to his delivery that feels comforting, even when the lyrics are conveying dark and sad perspectives.
Jörnesten eschews rhymes in most if not all his songs, but the consistent country and folk rhythms provide plenty of structure, so it’s not even noticeable until you start to dig into the lyrics. Just as many poets find more freedom outside of rhyme, he seems to let his thoughts wander where they want to go, and the result is an almost hypnotic contemplation of his mind and his place in the universe.
Some songs delve into more concrete situations, like wishing for reconciliation with a departed friend or lover, but even those stories are told in a reflective way, like “The Weight of the World”:
Can’t we just stay inside, let day rest awhile
And think about nothing?
You worry too much
And I think too slow
We’re carrying the weight of the world
And in “Can I Call You My Friend?”:
I’ve been trying so hard just to belong to anyone
That I’ve lost myself on my way
But now that I’ve told you who I am
Now that you know who you are
We can be ourselves together again
The gorgeous, standout ballad “I Have Found a Way” could be about fading memories from a relationship or even a more serious loss of memory, but either way, every line speaks to a desperate desire to reclaim what’s lost:
Take me to the place everything started
We tried to find a meaning of ourselves
Lead me down the road where everything’s forgotten
Tell me about yourself
I don’t know where I’m headin’
I’m at the point of no return
Nothing to stop me from floating away
Jörnesten’s voice is at its gentlest on this track, and the guitar accompaniment even more minimalist than on the rest of the album, letting the pathos of the lyrics shine.
Anders Jörnesten. Photo courtesy of the artist.
His deep connection to nature and the seasons is another consistent theme tying Astrology together. It comes out most strongly in “Wild Wild Country,” in which leaving city life for the wonders of the countryside is a panacea that can make all his troubles go away.
But love of nature permeates many of the other songs as well. “I’ve learned the language of the birds and now they’re singing back at me,” he sings in “All Alone”; “Up there in the dark eternity I see all the stars in the sky / I don’t need more than that.” There’s a profound link to life and death and time passing in his observations of the natural world, exemplified by “Bury Me Up These Hills”: “Every morning I can see how the world comes alive / And every evening when the sun sinks, how it dies.”
Though the instrumentation is minimal, Jörnesten’s outlaw-country influences come through strongly. (Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series showed us that you don’t need much more than a voice and a guitar to express themes of resilience, weariness and regret in the most poignant way.) But Jörnesten brings his own philosophical bent even to the cowboy story “Wanted Dead or Alive,” which could be about any number of crimes, from actual ones to crimes of the heart:
I don’t have anything to look back on besides belief in myself
But sometimes too much believing caused trouble on the way
I never meant to hurt anyone, even though there's been a few
And I often regret myself under the moon and stars
As with most of the songs on Astrology, even this torment is delivered in a calming, ruminative way. For me, it painted a picture of a lone cowboy strumming out his feelings by a campfire—sad but romantic in its reflection of a life gone wrong. It matches my overall impression of this uniquely poetic, unhurried compilation of songs that seem to provide a window into the workings of the artist’s mind.
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the primary music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley!
