En naturbegavelse

In Dagsavisen (Oslo), under the headline “En naturbegavelse” (“A natural talent”), Geir Rakvaag reviews Jackie Leven's album Creatures Of Light And Darkness (Cooking Vinyl/VME). For a long time Leven released an album every year, almost as though it were a matter of urgency for him after he was cured of his drug abuse. This time he has let three years pass, Rakvaag says (not quite right, as the previous album, Defending Ancient Springs, appeared in 2000), and he has a great deal on his mind.

Leven takes both words and music seriously, so it takes a while to digest his poetry, which is “full of big images of wild nature and even wilder emotions”. The music is rooted as usual in Celtic song tradition, but this time it moves some way towards soul on several songs, for instance “The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ”, which was apparently meant to be the title track of the whole album but perhaps became too strong in the end. As a friend of Norway, Leven does not deny himself this time either: “Rainy Day Bergen Women” is lyrically almost an update of the Bergen favourite “Jenter fra Bergen er nåkke for seg”, set at the fish market, with David Thomas dropping by with big words.

The boldest project is a setting of Robert Frost's poem “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” (here called “Stopped By Woods…”), one of the great treasures of American literature, to which Leven has set a truly beautiful melody and which becomes the album's high point. The closing line: “Han er fortsatt noe helt for seg selv” – he is still something entirely his own.