SUSANNA & DAVID WALLUMRØD

Live SUSANNASONATA

Live covers set from noir-ish Norwegians.

Susanna Wallumrød is best known as one half of Susanna And The Magical Orchestra, but she has a parallel penchant for cover versions. This set of live interpretations, with her cousin David Wallumrød accompanying her on keyboards, was recorded in Oslo and Aker shortly before the pandemic times. The pair have been in bands together on and off since they were kids, and there’s a relaxed, unshowy aura to their empathic work on this album.

It’s not about reinventing the wheel, and they’re hardly the first to give a melancholy, sensitive, stripped-down reading of The Beatles’

For No One or Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel #2. At times, this does teeter on the edge of a cliff-fall into John Lewis Christmas ad territory. That they avoid that eventuality is down to Susanna’s astute pitching and timbre – never too emotive, never too frosty – and the fact the listener believes they’re inhabiting these worlds, however familiar.

If the (too) many Tom Waits songs strain a little, their take on Joni Mitchell’s This Flight Tonight is a masterclass in phrasing and Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball dances deftly. A haunted karaoke booth.