With her new album Wildhorse, Norweigan singer-songwriter Malin Pettersen masterfully blends her love for country and jazz to create a delightful mixture of the two genres that is at once stunning and mesmerizing. Brilliantly produced by the trio Aaron Goodrich, Ryan A. Keith, and Misa Arriaga, Pettersen’s prodigious talent is allowed to take flight and the result is both celestial and awe-inspiring.
Recorded in Nashville with an impeccable all-star backing band providing the instrumentation, Pettersen’s silky and dazzling voice completes and presents on the record one of 2020’s most particularly unique soundscapes, one in which one hears the singer simultaneously and gloriously conjuring up the sounds of both beer and whiskey soaked honky-tonks and smoky cool jazz bars at 3:00 AM in the morning , sometimes in the same song.
Highlights of this gorgeous and imaginative record include the smooth and entrancing “California”, the grandly defiant “Hometown”, the upbeat and spirited “Let’s Go Out” , the powerfully emotive “I Don’t Care”, the slow burning country rocker “Mr. Memory”, the determined and alluring “Wildhorse Dream”, and the soft Bakersfield sounding “Queen of the Meadow”.
Throughout all of the songs on the album, Pettersen’s emotion and attitude soaked singing wonderfully touches upon classic country music themes like love, heartbreak, and dreams in a way that not only displays vulnerability but also a strength and resiliency that gives them and the singer an undeniable universal appeal.
Just how good is this record? For me, listening to these tracks, it’s not hard to imagine a day in the near future when we are discussing how big of a Nashville and international star Malin Pettersen is and has become. The evidence for this prediction is all over this record and all you have to do is close your eyes and listen. Her heavenly, enticing, and irresistible voice will do the rest.
Wildhorse Dream (Die With Your Boots On Records) by Malin Pettersen is now available on the artist’s website .