JEANETTE SOLLÉN – Ripe When Yields To Gentle Pressure – LP green limited – DCLP007

As often happens, I stumbled upon the music and art of Jeanette purely by chance. At the time, I was only a music critic and journalist. I immediately contacted her, and shortly after interviewed her for the Italian magazine Rockerilla. I was very surprised no one was publishing her amazing music. Jeanette and I eventually met for dinner at my place, and we had a wonderful evening exchanging ideas. She gave me her only self-released cd as well as many unreleased pieces, spanning roughly twenty years of music. These pieces were written mainly for plays and scores. When I started Dark Companion Records in 2015, I commissioned Jeanette to write an album for our label. While she is working on this new project, Annie and I had the idea of collecting some of her past works into this album. Her music still amazes me. What terrific musical skill she has. In Jeanette’s music I hear many artists who have influenced her from the seminal work of Meredith Monk to minimalism, postmodern classical, Darmstadt school and progressive rock. I hope this first release will bring her the broader audience which she absolutely deserves. So I hope this record will bring you the same joy as I feel when I hear those time-suspending northern realm voices, hyper-cubistic visionary saxophones, and overgrown icy zithers whose sound still lingers in my ears.

Max Marchin / Dark Companion