Lena Nymark - Trapped In The Silence (2017)

Norwegian pop-jazz, singer-songwriter-flutist-clarinetist Lena Nymark sophomore solo album «Trapped In The Silence» brings again the issue of silence of our lives, as on one of her previous albums, «Beautiful Silence» (Grappa, 2014). It may be the quiet, peaceful surroundings of the Sula island where she lives or the long terms of silence that she needs to write her music. Nymark work in the last decade focused mainly on collaborations with percussionist Terje Isungset's ice project and with fellow-Sula resident, clarinetist Jens Arne Molvær (father of trumpeter Nils Petter).
«Trapped In The Silence» was recorded at the pastoral studio of Ocean Sound Recordings in Giske, the same place that Nymark recorded «Beautiful Silence», and radiates similar innocent, disarming atmosphere, dipped in reserved melancholy. Nymark delivery - as a vocalist and flutist and clarinetist - is warm and clear, leaving enough space for pianist Dag-Filip Roaldsnes, bass player Jo Fougner Skaansar and drummer Stig Harald Rennestraum. Still, Nymark vocal delivery sound more natural and nuanced when she sings in Norwegian, with a playful Sula accent, on the last song «Sukkerspinn av glass», the only song that is sung in Norwegian.
Nymark suggests a series of touching, emotional environments in her songs, but careful not to surrender fully to these emotions. Even when she visualizes the winter darkness as the darkness inside her in «Beast in the Dark», a darkness that turns her «into a beast», she knows that she will turn this darkness into love. In the title song the gory images of a a deserted, angry lover do not match the restrained emotional envelope of the song. And on «No Soul Syndrome» she reaffirms her trust in love despite the realization that our world is filled with many «people with no soul».
Nymark most beautiful song on this album is «The Mirror», where she balances images of yearning, sea and aging with a delicate, poetic playing of all.