{"id":471,"date":"2010-10-25T21:35:07","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T20:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mainisorri.com\/wordpress\/?p=471"},"modified":"2010-11-12T14:31:01","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T13:31:01","slug":"ep-review-someday-in-uk-30-september-by-piers-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainisorri.com\/wordpress\/?p=471","title":{"rendered":"Review by Piers Ford, UK 30 september 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Someday<\/a>EP Review: Someday \u2013 Maini\u00a0Sorri by Piers Ford 30 September<\/strong><\/p>\n

Someday: deceptively simple lyrics combine with melancholic undertones to generate an ABBA-esque frisson<\/p>\n

Not everyone can take a quirky little ditty and make it credible. It takes sincerity, a deal of musical sensibility and a belief in the ultimate message of a song that is probably greater than the sum of its parts. Maini Sorri seems to have the ability in spades. How about this for a couplet?<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth is you were selfish and a phoney.<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t have trusted you and your baloney.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of my favourite snippets from her new EP Someday<\/em>, a small collection of five songs that frequently reveal a melancholy undercurrent beneath their whimsical lyrics and well-crafted melodies. Does that sound reminiscent of a certain other Scandinavian outfit? I\u2019m not suggesting that there are huge similarities between Sorri\u2019s work and the nuances of Benny and Bjorn\u2019s finest numbers. But in the deceptive simplicity of lyrics that can sound banal, even childlike, at the first hearing before they work their way under your skin, and the layered arrangements, guitar-driven and piano-based, with their minor accents, it\u2019s impossible not to detect a hint of ABBA\u2019s mastery of the accessible pop tune with the dark back story.\u00a0 And it\u2019s no surprise that she cites Agnetha Faltskog as one of her main singing influences.<\/p>\n

Sorri is a Finn who lives mainly in Sweden and is gifted with a pure, crystalline voice that easily covers the ground between pop and the more mainstream reaches of modern folk. Her accent \u2013 more shades of that ABBA-like appeal \u2013 gives these songs an air of innocence, a lack of guile, that surely belies her all-round musical strengths. She knows exactly what she\u2019s doing and the sound she wants to achieve, and the result is a modest little box of jewels, from the catchy, twinkling intro of the title track (don\u2019t be fooled, it soon gets elemental and philosophical, and has its eye on the great hereafter) to the gently contemptuous \u201cI Shouldn\u2019t Have Trusted You\u201d (source of the baloney reference) and the sadly defiant \u201cI Am Leaving\u201d, which is also offered in Finnish as \u201cLahden Yksin\u201d.<\/p>\n

My first thought on playing \u201cSomeday\u201d was that it has a certain Eurovision quality \u2013 in a good way. I don\u2019t know if Sorri has tried her luck yet in the Finnish or Swedish selection processes for the contest, but reading her thoughtful and intelligent blog posts <\/a>on the subject, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if she has ambitions in that direction. With a growing following \u2013 not just in Europe but also in the US and Canada \u2013 this could be a prime time for her to make that particular move.<\/p>\n

Piers Ford<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Art Of a Torch Singer”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EP Review: Someday \u2013 Maini\u00a0Sorri by Piers Ford 30 September Someday: deceptively simple lyrics combine with melancholic undertones to generate an ABBA-esque frisson Not everyone can take a quirky little ditty and make it credible. It takes sincerity, a deal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,73,142,144],"tags":[648,151,88,34,653,657,43,152],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cd","category-maini-sorri","category-review","category-someday","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-female-singer","tag-female-vocalists","tag-finnish","tag-maini-sorri","tag-review","tag-swedish","tag-torch-singer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t