Myknings middel – Jackie Leven: «Fairytales For Hard Men» (MD/Cooking Vinyl)

Haugesunds Avis reviews Jackie Leven's Fairytales for Hard Men (MD/Cooking Vinyl) under the headline “Myknings middel” (roughly “softener”). Four albums in barely three years are, the reviewer says, on the generous side, even for Leven. He was deeply touched by the 1994 comeback The Mystery of Love… but has increasingly experienced the records as repetitions.

Leven's programme is to soften men and women, to peel away pride, fear and false ideals and cultivate tenderness, empathy, poetry and joie de vivre instead; “Boy Trapped In A Man” and “Fear of Women” are among the titles. His respect for great poetry has this time led him to set W. B. Yeats, James Wright and – with an exclamation mark – the Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen to music. Musically it is the same sonorous, warm mix of heartfelt vocals, acoustic guitar, engaging keyboards and instruments one mostly associates with Celtic folk. Leven's old group Doll By Doll play on three of the tracks.