Christian Kjellvander

A Village: Natural Light

Seventh solo album from the Swede, weaned for a time in the US, and it’s a beauty.

When Christian Kjellvander was six years old, his folks left Sweden for the States; when he was 15, they returned. He’d soaked up Gram Parsons and Neil Young, added a bottomless baritone and sense of Scandinavian dark: a Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texastype loneliness. But this album’s less stark than previous work; filled with heartstopping harmonies and Bad Seeds-style propulsion, it moves from alienation to tentative bliss. In opener Shallow Sea, where he’s “looking for a light in the night/That’s not TV”, Kjellvander could be a troubled John Grant; Dark Ain’t That Dark has a Scott Walker minimalism, before cracking – “Beautiful soul, I’m glad we’re downtown tonight” – into emotion and an almost Curtis Mayfield soul break. Midsummer (Red Dance) is engulfing: hammering beats, thunderous drums. Then honeyed Gallow (with ex-punk wife Therese) brings resolution: “Spread your wings but don’t fly away/Lay with me for all tomorrow…” A gritty pearl.