Those who want to experience that sense of wonder can simply play the album’s seventh track, “alyosha,” a song about Sundfør’s great love affair and a showcase of that incomparable voice. Those moments when she breaks free—in this song, in the second half of “Undercover,” at the end of “Mountaineers”—feel like the closest thing in music to a glimpse of God. But she sparingly uses this power and the upper register: you have to wait for it. Is this a conscious decision? “That’s when I want to express this kind of extraordinary power, kind of uncomplicated or raw emotion,” she says. “But it is a lot i strain my voice so if i do i can’t sing for the rest of the day. Not proper vocal technique at all. For me, it’s not my proudest achievement vocally. It’s like… just screaming.”
What is her relationship with her voice? “I think laziness is coming back because I don’t like practicing singing,” she says. She made one concession to keep her gift, giving up smoking when she turned 30, but she’s no absolutist. “The way I think about my voice is the way I think about music and the way I practice as a creative songwriter: I’ll always be a pop musician, so it’s not about perfection. I sang a lot of opera when I was a teenager, and that’s it everything about technique: you have to develop your timbre because you have to be louder than the orchestra. Then you can be creative in how you interpret the songs. But pop music is much more about intuition.”
Does she sing around the house? “No. I don’t really sing except when I have to work, which is really sad because I used to sing all the time. I think that happens to some musicians. But I don’t really listen to that much music. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed. Like, it just never stopped. That was all for me. I think as it becomes work related now, I start to analyze and I’m extremely picky. I don’t like almost any music. My husband has a lot of Brazilian records and I really enjoy listening to them. I like Neil Young and Kate Bush and Bill Withers and…” She trails off after she’s obviously run out of names. “Simple: when I approach music, I have to write it. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.”
Other artists will talk about their desire to leave a lasting body of work, to provide a lifeline for those who love art, or to fulfill a deep need to express themselves. For Sundfør it is much simpler. “I see the way the albums have come into my life now, and I see that I’m telling the story of my life. But this is not a conscious choice. I think for me it’s about play: not necessarily always entertainment playing, but more just as a creative approach to music.” She shrugs. “That’s pretty much it. Not fancy at all. It’s just making music.”