OH LAND – Wish Bone
01. Bird In An Aeroplane
02. Renaissance Girls
03. Cherry On Top
04. 3 Chances
05. My Boxer
06. Love a Man Dead
07. Next Summer
08. Sleepy Town
09. Pyromaniac
10. Green Card
11. Kill My Darling
12. Love You Better
13. First To Say Goodnight
There’s nothing wrong with adding a bit of edginess to the shiny construct that is known as popular music. It’s just good for the balance and to keep the level of interest a bit higher than with all the other shallow acts around. And it’s nothing else that Nanna Øland Fabricius aka OH LAND does on her new album Wish Bone. It’s the third album by the Danish musician which gets released these days. And it’s another proof why this inconsiderable little lady from Copenhagen might me one pop music’s most entertaining characters at the moment. She’s as pop as she can be while also remaining quite sophisticated in sound, full of surprises and with a decent love for experiments.
Wish Bone was produced by TV ON THE RADIO‘s Dave Sitek and if there’s one person who knows how to combine experimental joy with solid songwriting it’s this guy. Fabricius presents herself in full bloom on the album. It shows her expressionistic side which reminds a bit of LADY GAGA or FEVER RAY while also giving the honest musician a lot of space on the album.
Reduced clicking and clacking beats like in the opening tune Bird In An Aeroplane already shows Sitek’s influences, giving the gentle pop tune certain weird twists and turns. “I can be an engine buzzing like a bee / I’m a real independent doing the laundry and planning for the future” – Renaissance Girl, the second song on the album comes as a statement showing OH LAND to the world with everything you need to know about her. Fabricius can be both – a wild lioness and gentle cat. The more intimate aspect gets its space in the tender folk moment 3 Chances, Love You Better or the smooth r’n’b-like ballad Cherry On Top. “You can have it all but you never stop / ‘Cause all you ever want is the cherry on top” Gosh, it’s not always easy with the boys, isn’t it?
Wish Bone is full of lovely surprises for all lovers of strong and experimental female pop singers in the style of LYKKE LI or AUSTRA‘s Katie Stelmanis. You can clearly sense the influence her new home base New York had on the music. OH LAND adds a certain dark and dirty note to her sweet indie-pop, making Wish Bone sounds way more grown up than previous material. She’s not the sweet girl from the Danish neighbourhood anymore, she’s a cool Brooklyn babe. But still she keeps it classy and musically nice. With Wish Bone you’ll get one of the most interesting and entertaining pop albums of the recent time. A joyful right into the land of… well, OH LAND. Pop with ambition, something for the radio stations where you won’t instantly switch the channel once it starts playing. And that’s clearly not the worst suggestion.
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