A uniquely beautiful, complex, layered project of 12 monthly releases created by Stockholm-based singer/songwriter Rebekka Karijord and the poet, artist and dancer Jessica Dessner, who also brings in her younger twin brothers Aaron and Bryce of The National. The songs, mixing folk and chamber music, capture the gradual changes of climate over the course of a year and all the subtle emotions they bring from January to December and were put together in Paris’s St. Germain studios out of Rebekka’s demos. While Jessica Dessner is the co-creator, including the artworks, she was also fighting breast cancer during the process, and the recordings feature not a quartet, but the trio of Karijord and the two Dessner brothers. The album requires several listens through, ideally with headphones while walking through woods, or on a quiet, late night to allow all the subtleties of this folk and its orchestrations to unfold. A compelling, often melancholy but beautiful work, cycling through the seasons, glimpsing the planet in the wake of the climate crisis, a marriage of the inner and outer worlds, illness and rejuvenation, grief and joy. The song for May is among the standout tracks (“The moon is ten days old / Bright cast from a darker shadow / The river on an ancient course”), but the entire album is very much worth a full immersion. Out on Bella Union.
Complete Mountain Almanac: Rebekka Karijord with Jessica Dessner with her brothers Aaron and Bryce of The National
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