Swedish beauty is mixed with New Orleans soul in the kitchen on Theresa Andersson’s one-woman debut, Hummingbird, Go!. The Gotland-born, Big Easy-living Andersson has been soaking up the spirit of New Orleans for a while, with everyone from Allen Toussaint to a lady named Katrina. But now she’s breaking out, very much on her own, with Hummingbird, Go!.
The grand, orchestra hall emotion of the echoing opener “Na Na Na” sets Hummingbird off on the right step, but in general, the first side of the record is not as strong as the second. Too much of the first half is dedicated to pretty but small experiments in different styles, from the catchy gospel-strip of “Birds Fly Away” to the Hawaiian pluck and strings of “Hi-Low”. And instrumentals like the title track in the middle, while nice, take away the best weapon in Andersson’s arsenal: her voice.
Thankfully, the singer/songwriter goes bigger on the second side of Hummingbird, starting off with the stand out “Japanese Art”. The up-tempo foot-stomp ditty brings a gleeful energy that perhaps Andersson should have used more of. But she still carries the record to the finish with a grand flourish, first with the high, folk-gospel of “God’s Highway”, then the soul-diva (with southern Gothic pluck) “Locusts Are Gossiping”, and then the orchestral strings on “Minor Changes”. And if you can, Go! get Hummingbird online, because that includes “Now I Know”. Written with New Orleans’ legendary Allen Toussaint, it has a high, powerful sway to its soul-gospel that feels like it could only have come out of the Big Easy.
What’s maybe most impressive about Hummingbird, Go! is that Theresa Andersson recorded the whole thing on her own, in her kitchen, looping not just her instruments, but even her voice, to create a sort of ‘pseudo-back-up singers’, The Kitchenettes (reminiscent, but even more impressive than, New Zealand’s own one-man operation, Liam Finn – QRO album review). If anything, Andersson should have utilized that aspect more, and gone bigger & grander on Hummingbird. But there’s still many places for her to Go!.
