Birds Are Better take gorgeous flight with their breathtaking folk-pop album The Island: Part One — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
A sparkling amalgamation of indie/dream folk, electro and pop, Norwegian singer-songwriter Stian Fjelldal’s The Island: Part One allows us to imagine what Crosby Stills & Nash might’ve sounded like if they’d been produced by Bon Iver and Susanne Sundfør in an alternate universe. The first of two albums scheduled for release this year — and Fjelldal’s English-language debut — Part One captures the artist’s emergence from a bout of writer’s block that saw the veteran artist plagued by self-doubt and malaise.
After emerging onto to the scene in 2010 with the radio hit Håbløs in 2010, a record deal with Warner Music, and releasing such memorable gems as Sammen I Mørket, Æ Vil Heim, I Verdens Rigeste Land, Bare Min, Festen and Ville Hesta, Fjelldal found himself in a creative rut. So he decided to free himself and go in a new direction with Birds Are Better.
https://youtu.be/elAuf1SeuDg
“In January 2022, I released my fifth studio album Hus,” he explains. “It felt OK, but not particularly great, despite all the work I had put into it. I was taken aback by my own lack of enthusiasm at the time, but I wasn’t particularly surprised either. Three years had passed since I started a side project, which began with writer’s block. I had become tired of myself and felt trapped in my own image. A question sneaked up on me: Did I actually like my own music? Or, more specifically: Would I listen to it if it were made by someone else?”
Fjelldal’s answer to that question can be heard in the soaring sense of liberation he achieves with The Island: Part One. Clearly the work of a singer-songwriter reveling in his newfound sense of creative freedom and resurgence, the results are, by turns, gorgeous, breathtaking, melancholy and, ultimately, life-affirming. As you’ll hear, The Island — Part One owes as much to classic groups as it does to more modern fare like Fleet Foxes and Flaming Lips.
Check out the album below, watch the videos for Fall and Seven In The Morning above, and follow Birds Are Better on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
