Hanne Hukkelberg - Featherbrain

Music boxes, cogs and creaks, kettles boiling, sewing machines, chiming clocks and multiple strings. This album is a rich Norwegian delight. ‘Noah’ begins with a tentative piano and crescendos from a pure, flute-like vocal into an insistent, spiralling chorus of many voices, like a gathering of circling, spinning birds. The visceral ‘My Devils’ is Banshees-meets-‘Garland’s-era Liz Fraser in a thrillingly urgent primal chorus. The closer, sung in Norwegian with Erik Vister, an eighty-year-old classical singer, is almost tear-inducing. Over spartan piano, his ancient sage-like voice and hers swoop, entwine and fade to papery whistling. This feels special.

8/10

Words by ANNA WILSON