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Lately we’ve had old timer Gil Scott-Heron (I’m New Here) experimenting with new sounds, Jose James going multi-genre on his new album Blackmagic and for those with good memories with Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin doing their collaboration of string and jazz vocal. The collaboration between Rigmor Gustafsson (vocals) and radio.string.quartet.vienna (strings) is more like Paul “Rock Swings” meets a standards songbook for string quartet.

If you don’t know of Rigmor Gustafasson, she is a Swedish singer who has one of those big 60s voices who if best known for her cover versions of tracks by Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Michel Legrand whilst if you had seen radio.string.quartet.vienna on their UK tour last year, you’ll know already they are a string quartet more than willing to experiment (having recorded a track for the Celebrating The Mahavishnu Orchestra compilation; but not ‘You Know, You Know’ as on Athens: Underworld vs. The Misterons; apparently Rigmor is also a big McLaughlin fan.

On a quick look at the song titles and you’re thinking, no much chance of a Carl Craig remix with this lot (although after the Recomposed album on Deutsche Grammophon last year, you just never know). Strangely she puts on a Swedish accent (although more of a lilt really as she is Swedish) on the Bacharach/David ‘Close To You’. A song you’d have thought would have been totally exhausted by lame X-Factor style impersonations but this (like what The Imagined Village did with ‘Scarborough Fair’ on Empire And Love), this is the best cover I’ve heard of ‘Close To You’ as it get the right mix of string and jazz vocal tension. Not quite in the Isaac Hayes league of ‘Walk On By’ (from Hot Buttered Soul) but it gives me goose bumps of excitement; and ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’ is nearly as good!

You’d have thought on a project like this that they’d be some Lennon & McCartney (apparently it was on the cards) but I’m pleased to say that it’s not all covers versions. Rigmor shows how she can excel on r.s.q.v’s Johannes Dickbauer’s ‘Wherever We Go’ and her own ‘Nothing’s Better Than Love’ (with a Rickie Lee Jones phrasing and the string a rockin’). Neither are like ‘Goodbye For Now’ that has Radio 2/JazzFM written all over it al a Nora Jones, compare to Rigmor on ‘Calling You’ that’s a bit a of grower.

Getting back to the top tracks, the r.s.q.v’s Asha Valcic’s ‘Fancy Nancy’ (quartet jazz rockabilly a la Imelda May’s Love Tattoo) and the oddness of their interpretation on ‘The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’ by Charles Mingus with lyrics added by Joni Mitchell; the quartet do their best acoustic Jean-Luc Ponty whilst Rigmor resists any Mitchell pastiche.

I certainly enjoyed the second half of this album more than the first. It doesn’t help that I’ve never thought much of Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ (come on, I can’t be the only one?) and ‘Makin Whoopee’? Actually, ‘Makin Whoopee’ pricks up your ears as to how good this project can be with superb arrangements by Mallinger and Dickbauer and Rigmor hitting the ‘jazz’.

The best bit of John Legend’s ‘Please Don’t Stop’ is when she sings in Swedish (well that’s what it sounds like) and the set ends on an interpretation of a tradition Swedish song ‘Ack Värmland Du Sköna’. Rigmor’s singing in Swedish sounds as she does in English and ‘Ack Värmland Du Sköna’ finds the quartet at there’s most moody classical with some gothic skat from Rigmor (yeah, could have been more of this me thinks).

A bit of an odd one then with ‘Close To You’ standing out and and the best version of ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ I’m likely to hear. I hope these guys go on tour with this and work up a second album as the potential for a classic is definitely on the cards.

And I love the radio on the cover; a Swedish Bush?

Hectic Mix nomination: [the fantastic] ‘Close To You’ and ‘The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’, ‘Nothing’s Better Than Love’, ‘Fancy Nancy’, ‘Ack Värmland Du Sköna’.

Reviewed: Rigmor Gustafasson / radio.string.quartet.vienna - Calling You (ACT) Cat. No: 9722-2 Release date: 1st March 2010 Bernie Mallinger (violin), Johannes Dickbauer (violin), Cynthia Liao (viola), Asja Valcic (cello)
Tracklisting:
1. Still Crazy After All These Years (4:29)
2. Makin’ Whoopee (3:50)
3. Goodbye For Now (3:13)
4. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (3:54)
5. Fancy Nancy (2:25)
6. If It’s Magic (4:00)
7. Please Don’t Stop (4:00)
8. Close To You (4:13)
9. Whenever We Go (5:20)
10. The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines (4:39)
11. Calling You 5:01
12. Nothing’s Better Than Love 3:24
13. Ack Värmland Du Sköna (Swedish Trad.) 5:38

Links:
www.rigmorgustafsson.com
www.myspace.com/rigmorgustafsson
www.radiostringquartet.com
www.actmusic.com
yo-yoma.com