Sandra Kolstad - (Nothing Lasts) Forever

Norway’s sultry electro siren Sandra Kolstad introduces new album ‘(Nothing Lasts) Forever’ just one year after the brazen and beautifully dark ‘Crux’. Sandra’s most recent effort is equally creative and energy-laden, its flow, however, is much calmer. While ‘Crux’ was heavy and forceful, the new album comes to life through meditative introversion.

Opener ‘The First Deception (The First Guarantee)’ embraces the listener with a vocal fluidity and long-forgotten ghostly inflection reminiscent of fellow Nordic Björk, while its slowly developing dubby disco beat is more like Lykke Li or Annie.

Intuitively grand follow-up tracks ‘Kyrie (Elysion)’ and ‘The Young (Evil) Woman And The Ocean’ showcase Kolstad’s gift for dynamic composition, which is equally boisterous yet focused. Like those ghostly nights in half deserted clubs when that particular Joy Division song comes on and suddenly people appear from every corner and fill the dancefloor, Kolstad’s album treads the fine line between exuberant joy and thoughtful melancholy.

She, in her most arresting lullaby mode, then moves on to current single ‘The Well (We Will Change It All)’ brimming with spectacularly dreamy vocals, creating sound landscapes that combine the grandness of her Norwegian homeland with the tumultuous fluidity of her current residence Berlin.

Finally, collaboration ‘Do The Dive (Gravity Animals)’ with Norwegian hip hop don Son Of Light proves why it’s safe to say that the future belongs to Kolstad. Her fearlessness to combine distinguished sounds with her playful production cacophony approach adequately characterises today’s transient music world. Embrace Kolstad’s colourful and inspiring universe now.