The voice that Teitur Lassen sings with sounds–to this American listener–sweet, forgiving, and proper. These are all characteristics that I identify as vaguely Scandinavian, though I’ve no idea what kind of lingering evidence growing up on the Faroe Islands, as Teitur did, might actually leave in one’s voice. Its other qualities–the delicate, charmed delivery, his cadence that sometimes is as slow as speaking, the breath that gives it volume and humanity–are more familiar than foreign, more local than global. If nothing else, Teitur can use the instrument he was born with to make you trust and believe him.
The songs that Teitur sings on The Singer are poems about ordinary things. He falls in love, meets friends, feels happy, confused, and lonesome. The melodies that deliver them are built by his faithful guitar, flourished at times by horns, or orchestras, or vocal harmonies. These songs are gentle to hear and easy to sing along with; they feel like songs you know on the first listen. Teitur can use language and sound to create music that makes you feel like you’ve always trusted and believed him.
Teitur is awkward, inordinately direct, oddly self-conscious, sometimes morose. “Letter from Alex” presses on with the melancholy weight of a funeral dirge or a last waltz, with horns that are both gravitational and heaven-directed and articulations that would be tearful if they weren’t so plain. The album’s bouncer, “Catherine the Waitress,” is playful and adoring as it narrates a childish crush on the song’s namesake. Even here, even in joy, Teitur is unrequited, left wanting.
Teitur is not for everyone, not for everyday. He won’t meet you when you are angry, or sarcastic, or ebullient, or wasted. He sounds better on a rainy day, lulls you to sleep when you are tired, wrests heartbroken emotions out of your heart and mind. But this is what he does, and he does it well. This, his third album, is convincingly his finest. Ultimately, Teitur makes you want to listen.