New Music: Siv Jakobsen announces new album Gardening and shares new single ‘Romain’s Place’

Acclaimed Norwegian singer-songwriter Siv Jakobsen announces her third album Gardening will be released on January 20 via The Nordic Mellow and shares new single ‘Romain’s Place’. The new single follows recently shared tracks ‘Birthday’ and ‘Most Of The Time’ – all of which are set to feature on new album Gardening.

Throughout her career, Siv Jakobsen has lived much of her life on the road, in that time supporting and touring with acts including Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Damien Jurado, José González, The Lumineers and Susanne Sundfør. New single ‘Romain’s Place’ was written in the midst of one such tour, inadvertently re-opening a door she’d previously thought firmly closed.

A starkly beautiful examination of a previous relationship haunting one’s subconscious, Jakobsen’s precise and affecting lyrics (“For every time you screamed my way / I’ve kept a bruise / All down along my spine”) are sung with a delicacy she’s now renowned for, atop a lush backdrop harps, trumpets, soaring string arrangements and Jakobsen’s intricate finger picked guitar work.

Speaking more on the lyrical inspiration behind ‘Romain’s Place’, Jakobsen said: “Right before the pandemic hit, I was on a small tour and found myself back in a city I used to call home. I hadn’t been back since I left it (and the relationship I had there) behind a good few years ago. I felt quite shocked with how my body and mind reacted to being back, and realised quickly that I had some emotional unpacking to do. I was staying with my friend Romain at the time, and for me my time in his apartment encapsulates this realisation and the start of me dealing with these ghosts from my past that had laid dormant for a while. I was so overwhelmed at the time that it felt as if I was going crazy. I really did feel haunted, as if I had jumped into a time-machine and was somehow back in the past.”

Produced by Hans Olav Settem and Simen Mitlid, mixed by Zach Hanson (Bon Iver, Hand Habits, Sylvan Esso, The Tallest Man On Earth), and featuring instrumental contributions from Emma Gatrill (This Is The Kit, Nick Cave, Lucy Rose) and Marcus Hamblett (Laura Marling, James Holden, The Staves), new album Gardening follows Jakobsen’s 2020 album A Temporary Soothing which was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy (Spelleman).

Gardening: