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Published on 5/8/08
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There’s no better way for a foreign artist to win over stateside audiences than with a shrewd cover of a well-known American artist. Still, Hanne Hukkelberg’s version of the Pixies’ “Break My Body” is a risky proposition. On her stealthily potent new disc, Rykestrasse 68—out in Europe since last April, but only now seeing a North American release via Nettwerk—the Norwegian singer-songwriter reimagines the art-punk anthem as a dark, sumptuous torch song. The gambit pays off handsomely: Keening violin and accordion add a creepy gothic air to Black Francis’s matter-of-fact declaration “I’m a horny loser.”
Atmospherics are a major priority for Hukkelberg, who plays her first local shows this week. Removed from its context, her soft-edged, melancholy delivery suggests a jazz balladeer. But on record, weird found sounds and ethereal textures hover around the singer, giving her pieces a surreal slant. Fortunately, the spell is preserved onstage, where she often performs with a mini-orchestra of players adept at eccentric moodcraft. Glockenspiel and flute mesh with sinuous guitar and a variety of percussive devices, including resonant metal bowls and even a conspicuous bicycle wheel. Hukkelberg’s pieces are often slow and dreamy, but she has plenty of options for enlivening a set, including jazzy, upbeat originals like “A Cheater’s Armoury” and a playful riff on another familiar tune, the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night.”
—Hank Shteamer
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