Norwegian singer-songwriter Malin Pettersen’s previous outing, the addictive Trouble Finding Words, was Pop with a capital P, filled with thick beats and thicker rhythms, yet drifted from the themes typical of the dance floor to embrace entropy and introspection, among other topics. Prior to that, her Americana-flavored Wildhorse in 2020 corralled—as I noted at the time—“a high lonesome sound that aches, breaks and shakes the heart and soul.” The shape-shifting continues with the Seasons. The EP consists of just her and a guitar as recorded in a closet—with a duvet as acoustic padding, no less. The six songs are stark but never (too) dark, folk in both form and substance, and ripple through the cosmos as if a constellation of shooting stars.
The gentle title tune, which opens the set, explores the cyclical nature of life: “Seasons change/We all know they do/People change/So will I, and so will you/And just like golden leaves fall to the earth/Spring will come around and hold a new flower’s birth.”
“The Speed of Life,” for its part, finds her marrying an array of concerns: “Buckle up, we’re going fast/Past the point of no return/As we travel through the universe/At the speed of life.” It could well be about the environmental tipping point, and may well be partially that, but it’s also about something far more personal. “And it is strange the way I know that even though I might be close to the end/When the day is gonna come, and this journey that I’m on is over/I will have known you as a friend.”
“Number and a Street” explores how memories linger, sometimes looming large and other times fading to nothingness while sharing how she still walks past the apartment of a former beau and the small cafe where they would meet. “And as I turn away and let memories be,” she sings, “I can’t help but wonder, do you ever think of me?” Here and elsewhere, her clear vocals and phrasing remind me of Shawn Colvin’s. To that end, “Ain’t Love a Wicked Friend” is something of a ricochet in spacetime, with Pettersen recounting meeting someone who could have been special but never called. “Crescent Cause of Vertigo,” on the other hand, reflects on how love both tethers us to Earth and sends us falling into the sky. The EP closes on a wistful note with “Kostervind,” which finds her singing in her native tongue. Unlike the Nordic noir dramas I sometimes watch, subtitles aren’t needed to understand the plot; the song breezes in as if a salty sea wind peppering the skin.
In short, Seasons is a melancholic treatise on life, love and memories that’s accented, above all, by Pettersen’’s clarion vocals. It’s well worth one’s time.
The Old Grey Cat 
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