Hanne Hukkelberg - 'Rykestrasse 68' (Nettwerk) Released 02/04/07

Following the 2005 release of 'Little Things' with its Oslo-inspired themes and whimsy, 'Rykestrasse 68' draws inspiration from Hanne Hukkelberg's 6 months spent in Berlin and utilises the same experimental bent with a mosaic of found sounds - the discarded bottles, the bus pulling up, crunching typewriter and the purring cat on the lap, with the Tom Waits-style junkyard of instruments contibuted from Norways eclectic scene - Jaga Jazzist, Dinosau and Shining providing the backing. Elfin in that percularly Scandanavian manner, Hanne's voice at times sounds glass thin with a transparent luminosity, eerie and bewitching with baroque turns drawing obvious comparisons with Joanna Newsom, Emiliana Torrini and Bjork.

'Berlin' opens the album theme with a droning strumming acoustic guitar, painting a dark and hermetic world more like a dark fjord with the street sounds of a cyclist wending their way and the bus pulling up and prepares for the arcane lyrics with high-pitched wispy- delivery - "...old bullet holes behind wild botany...", yet is so much observation of the Berlin she sees, and 'Obelisk' has the bowed double bass with the purring puss and a vocal like Portishead's Lou Rhodes only the mystery of the song "...towards his crypton..." points to the man who "...hides his tongue/ his words/ his song". 'A Cheater's Armoury' has a jazzy-lift with a more trad-pop song like a Roisin Murphy / Morcheeba cross about being duped - "...you gangster/ you fool us/ we watch your spinning wheel...". The waltzing 'The Pirate' sounds like a Brecht and Weill operatic piece with a distant accordion wheeze and repetitive-piano painting a Parisian Boulevard, yet is fathom deep with the sea and a Universal theme "...a dive into infinity/ eternity...", and 'Fourteen' talks of "...you'll find youself/ you'll become one..." amidst a psychedelic cartoon-world of "...snakes cast their skin/ slowly..." sounding like Herbert / Joanna Newsom and The Incredible String Band thrown into the blender.

'The North Wind' bellows with bass-notes and fairground atmospherics puntuated musically by a crunching typewriter, and 'Ticking Bomb' has 80's stylings cross of The Cure with Kate Bush with tossed bottles again addressing identity themes - "...I explode into pieces/ who am I...I lost myself again...". But the stand-alone track on this enigmatic release is Hanne's cover of The Pixies 'Break My Body' where the power and majesty of Hanne's modulating-voice is given full musical expression "...I'm a horny loser/ you'll find me crashing through my mother's door/ and I'm the ugly lover/ they find us rolling on a dirty floor...", the Freudian themes set to the eclectic atmospheric-instrumentation and a glorious chorus "..break my body/ hold my bones...somebody got hurt".

Less in common with the Berlin 0f Lou Reed and David Bowie, 'Rykestrasse 68' is a highly indiviualised work that melds that elfin voice and the found sounds that make the non-musical elements of existence yet are wonderfully woven into this tapestry with the hermetic lyricism and hotch potch of instrumentation. A fascinating talent for the experimental ear.