This Norwegian songbird started out as a wannabe pop singer (she scored a minor UK chart entry for EMI in 1990 with the single ‘Tell Me Where You’re Going’) before cannily re-inventing herself as a jazz chanteuse a few years ago. Blossom Dearie aside, Nergaard’s fragile, child-like voice is not the type normally associated with jazz and probably accounts for her reluctance to sing standards. Instead, she prefers to pen her own material with the help of long-time collaborator, lyricist Mike McGurk. Over the course of three albums (‘Port Of Call,’ ‘At First Light,’ and ‘Nightwatch’) Nergaard has formed a potent songwriting partnership with McGurk, and on this fourth opus for Emarcy, their collaboration has undoubtedly reached a new creative peak. Nergaard’s forte is dreamy, ruminative jazz-pop ballads, of which there are plenty here. ‘Wastelands’ is exquisite, closely followed by ‘The Beachcomber’ and the album’s mournful finale, ‘Let Me Be Troubled.’ As good as these are, they don’t come close to matching ‘When Judy Falls,’ a stupendous uptempo slice of catchy soulful pop that mutates into an orchestrated jazz-funk groove that sounds like it was produced by the Mizell brothers back in the 70s. Undoubtedly Nergaard’s most impressive work yet.
(CW) 4/5
