In January, Sunniva Lindgård’s hometown of Oslo averages under seven hours of daylight and sub-zero temperatures. It’s a suitably shivery time to release ‘Dreamer+’, her debut album as Sassy 009 that comes almost a decade after she debuted under the alias. The album was crafted over a four-year period and is defined by its crisp, icy murkiness, which sets it fundamentally apart from much of Lindgård’s previous material.
Since the departure of her two bandmates in 2019 – though, Sassy 009 had been a “solo project for quite a few years” before they were a band – Lindgård has steered the ship on her own, armed with ethereal alt-pop. Throbbing, bubblegum-y synth pulses bled through from debut single ‘Pretty Baby’ (2017) to ‘Mystery Boy’ (2021). On the 2021 mixtape ‘Heart Ego’, the latter helped tee her up as someone who might share the dancefloor with Biig Piig and Laurel in years to come.
‘Dreamer+’ distorts that narrative, consciously pivoting away from the hunky-dory world of ‘Heart Ego’, as Lindgård explained in her recent NME interview for The Cover. Arguably the best example is ‘Someone’, the record’s heart-stopping highlight, which remains irresistibly danceable while holding tension at knifepoint. As our host steps out of reality into a dream state, there’s an innate fragility that characterises the setting of the album.
What’s unclear is how comfortable Lindgård feels inside this dream world. She ponders if she will “wander this land forever / chasing the unimaginable” in ‘Enemy’. Inside the unsettling ’80s ambience of ‘Mirrors’, she seems trapped and “killing silence”, unable to hide her numbness in ‘In The Snow’ and the Blood Orange collaboration ‘Tell Me’. Instead of presenting clear-cut resolutions, ‘Dreamer+’ appears more of a flexible space that allows the musician to process her feelings.
Such exorcisms are hardly seamless, which might explain the grittier muscle that Lindgård properly flexes for the first time on ‘Dreamer+’. ‘My Candle’ and ‘Enemy’ bring light shoegaze and alt-rock surprises into the equation. Crackling opener ‘Butterflies’ fights too harshly against its heavenly imagery, overcooking lyrics like “heaven is close enough” with vocal distortion and the revving of a motorbike. While these tracks don’t feel completely out of place, they can grate against the album’s fluidity.
That patchiness is the main shortcoming of ‘Dreamer+’, interrupting the immersion that Lindgård commands so carefully in tracks like ‘Dreamer’ and ‘Sleepwalker’s Pendulum’. Nevertheless, the record proves Lindgård is a force to be reckoned with on all fronts – as a producer, songwriter and vocalist. Instead of resting on the laurels of her early material, the imaginary world she builds in ‘Dreamer+’ is one rooted in courage.
Details
- Record label: Heaven-Sent/PIAS
- Release date: January 16, 2025