Elin Palmer - Postcard

Elin Palmer
Post­card
Self-​Released; 2009

I have more than a few friends who would be turned off at the fol­low­ing com­par­i­son, mostly because their pro­cliv­i­ties regard­ing folk and indie music are mostly of the highly tra­di­tional and/​or purist strains. But when I heard the songs of Post­card by Elin Palmer for the first time, I imme­di­ately con­jured up images of Joanna New­som and Owen Pal­lett mak­ing a baby together and rais­ing their child on a healthy diet of clas­si­cal music and left-​of-​center folk singers from the ‘60s and ‘70s. If that fab­ri­ca­tion makes no sense to you, dear reader, let me put things another way – this native Swede has con­cocted a delec­table indie-​folk record that fea­tures her ele­gant soprano and her prodi­gious skill on the vio­lin and nick­el­harpa (an ancient, tra­di­tional Swedish instru­ment) along­side strings, piano, accor­dion, and an excel­lent per­cus­sion­ist.

What makes this woman’s com­mend­able com­bi­na­tion of folk and world instru­men­ta­tion so note­wor­thy is that she man­ages to accom­plish this while never bow­ing to hip­ster caprice. Palmer’s music is quirky with­out being weird or obtuse (even as she occa­sion­ally sings in her native tongue), and it’s pleas­ingly quaint with­out being an odd or sug­ary anachro­nis­tic throw­back. Part of me feels that it’s her lovely vocals thank­fully refus­ing those easy styl­is­tic crutches – she has a strong voice with just the right amount of lilt, one that never reaches for histri­onic heights and only breaks out its ethe­real qual­i­ties when absolutely necessary.

Admit­tedly, given this blonde chanteuse’s pedi­gree and track record as a multi-​instrumentalist record­ing for the Lee Lewis Har­lots, 16 Horse­power and M. Ward, there are plenty of DeVotchKa and Suf­jan Stevens ref­er­ence points with this eight-​song record. But on the whole, the only weak songs in my esti­ma­tion are “Duvar­dar” and “No Use,” which are each ham­pered by a rather staid, blasé gypsy-​ish waltz tempo, despite try­ing to charm your socks off with melodies that come straight out of a bliss­ful fairy tale.

Palmer, to my delight, never seeks to evoke any­thing remotely resem­bling blue­grass, freak-​folk, alt-​country, or some­thing else chic and trendy. More­over, there is noth­ing bul­bous, bloated, or overtly anthemic present with this music, as instead we’re graced with a dis­play of remark­able restraint and com­po­si­tional acu­men. Led by the title track, “Stora Stoular,” and “Bal­loons,” Post­card is a sim­ple, pretty folk-​pop record cre­ated by an extremely tal­ented musi­cian and her clas­si­cally trained friends that’s so very lovely to my ears.