Thomas Jonsson: The Lake Acts Like An Ocean

By: Dennis Cook

This is one of the best albums you’ll hear in 2008. Given the short attention span nature of many folks these days it seems prudent to get the punchline out before the set-up. Mayhap now you’ll stay to let me argue the case of Sweden’s Thomas Denver Jonsson, a singer-songwriter of Bonnie Prince Billy and Cat Power proportions that’s thus far flown below the radar of most in the States. On a slow rising arc since 2003, Jonsson has made deeply grooved inroads into the human condition, peeling away with poetry, melody and instrumental ingenuity the sticky layers of relationships, perhaps most poignantly one’s relationship to themselves and to love, in the archetypal sense. At the risk of overloading his work with praise, Jonsson possesses an unerring ability to make us sing our way into ourselves and one another, and he’s never been more reverberantly “on” than his third full-length, The Lake Acts Like An Ocean (Kite).

My moment sinks to the well
Please grant me your border
I revalue next step every single day
I lie next to the horizon
Your blue voice surrounds me
Guided by few, my grip bleaches
Your face is indulging
The border is rising over the trees
I hear it calling, calling for me

Strumming on a basement guitar and singing in a voice cracked, unvarnished feeling seeping through the breaches in his burnished wooden pipes. Jonsson is a pure songwriter, choosing the right setting, the right tones and colors, to fit each shifting mood. Where earlier releases downplayed his diversity a bit, here he steps boldly away from folksy tropes, adding electricity and rhythm with an assurance that echoes Iron And Wine‘s evolution the past few years. Lake contains huge sweeps in mood, from the naked tenderness of “Only For Beginners” to the phosphorescent, hold-your-breath shimmer of “Possession” to Townes Van Zandt-esque instrumental “The Tapdancers’ Union” to the ringing carousel twirl of “She Runs In Slow Motion.” Rather than feeling scattershot, Jonsson has crafted something cohesive, tightening each piece into sharp focus, with the whole feeling like a series of beautifully constructed wide shots and close-ups.

The love his band, The September Sunrise, feels for his tunes is obvious in their patient nuances and exposed emotion that matches Jonsson’s innate honesty. Fredrik Wilde (electric guitar, pedal steel), Tomas Lindberg (bass), Henric Stromberg (drums, percussion, vocals) and Carl Edlom (electric guitar, piano, organ, percussion, vocals), who also produced and engineered Lake, deserve a healthy portion of the credit for the overall vibe here. One would be hard pressed to find a more inviting records that also dishes out this level of truth telling. Their intuition for arrangements and textures, down to the tuba (courtesy of guest Anders Jonsson) that ushers out the final notes of “Love Campaign,” speak of a collective personal investment in getting these songs across. One feels that group energy throughout in these descendents of Michael Nesmith’s First National Band and Linda Ronstadt’s early ’70s bands.

For anyone flipping their lid for Bon Iver, South San Gabriel or other multi-faceted strummers of our shared ache, The Lake Acts Like An Ocean is something special most fans of thoughtful rock will be richly rewarded by. ‘Nuff said.

Someone you love has flown to the sea
For a better cause of the season
Down where the trees are made out of gold
Down within love campaign

Never idle, Jonsson also works in the sphere of moody, contemplative yet nervy electronica in A Perfect Friend, a nicely off-kilter partnership with CJ Larsgarden that employs loops, field recordings, guitars, whistles, synths, glockenspiel and more to push air into a downtempo, folk flecked beast that’s a beauty. Their self-titled debut was released last year.

The melodica sigh of “APF” raises George Harrison, who absentmindedly claps his hands and dances barefoot around a smoldering flame that never goes out. There’s no good way to come at A Perfect Friend’s constructions as traditional songs. The fractures and juxtapositions are part of the composition process, nerve endings for the whispered lyrics, glands to pump battery juice to primary organs. For this is a living, breathing thing. A Perfect Friend has the same alien animation as forefathers like Cluster, early Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, where one leaves oddly charged from the encounter with this new entity.

Thomas Denver Jonsson’s musical compass is one of the steadiest out there, and whatever direction it leads him will likely be well worth investigating. Pack a lunch; you won’t be back anytime soon if you follow him.

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