Amanda Mair - Amanda Mair

My thanks to Popjustice for introducing me to Amanda Ulrika Magdalena Mair last year with their support of the amazing single ’Doubt’; I soon discovered almost-as-great prior release ’House’ and downloaded both to my iPhone. Third great single ’Sense’ was released just shortly before the self-titled album itself on February 15th - which I had to acquire from Scandinavian music site ’CDON.eu’ even though the album was released on Swedish iTunes - I still don’t understand this stupid territorialism - music is an international medium - all album releases should be available simultaneously - at least in digital format!!!

Amanda was just 16 when she composed much of the material on the album - obviously talented well beyond her years, we won’t take away from the production of Philip Ekström either, which is excellent throughout. For me the nearest comparison is her compatriot Lykke Li, although Amanda is more conventional in her melodies and songwriting - as a head-to-head comparison though Amanda just about edges it on debuts - with slightly more consistency from track to track.

The tracks which really allow Amanda’s vocal talents to shine through are folkish stripped-down affairs - ’Skinnarviksberget’ (or the ’Picnic / Bottle of Wine Song’ as I like to call it!) and ’You’ve Been Here Before’ - both of which I really like, but I prefer the faster tracks! The album is overflowing in potential singles, with pretty much all being worthy - ’Said and Done’ and ’Before’ are possibly the most likely next 2 singles. What with ’Miike Snow’, ’Niki & The Dove’ and ’The Knife’ albums to come later in the year - Sweden in certainly putting up a strong showing for 2012 pop supremacy. I find Amanda’s debut wholly delightful from start to finish - there are obviously some tracks stronger than others, but you would have to be very mean to not award this a top level rating - I highly recommend it.

Tracklisting:

1. Said and Done 3:54
2. Doubt 3:29
3. House 4:00
4. Sense 3:31
5. Skinnarviksberget 3:17
6. Before 3:23
7. It’s Gonna Be Long 3:34
8. What Do You Want 3:10
9. You’ve Been Here Before 2:37
10. Leaving Early 3:34