(photo: Sara Arnald)

There was a short-lived sitcom in the 80s featuring Judd Hirsch (post-Taxi) called Dear John that was actually very funny in a sad-sack kind of way, about a guy named John whose wife leaves him for his best friend.  It was “comfort TV” in that for awhile, your pains and troubles seemed a little less significant than the heartache of the characters you were watching and laughing at.

Loney Dear is kind of like comfort music, in a way, because when you sit and listen to Emil Svanängen’s one-man pop orchestra, you’re immediately drawn into the sweetness and delicateness of his precious arrangements, while simultaneously experiencing the heartache and longing in his songs as a casual observer.  Dear John, his latest album as Loney Dear picks up the musical blueprint laid down by previous releases, Loney Noir and Sologne but the mood and tone isn’t as sunny and bright.  There’s definitely a sense of darkness and desolation in some of the tracks, tempered with moments of warmth.  It’s as if you’re feeling your way though an underground cave, and finding a lone glowing torch every couple hundred feet or so; the heat and light of the last torch sustains your trip through the darkness until you can come upon the next torch and warm your hands, your heart, and your soul before venturing deeper into the impending dark.

Loney Noir lost it’s appeal for me after a few listens, but the more I spend time with Dear John the more I enjoy  its synthetic, almost mechanical atmosphere.  Svanängen’s really delved into a new set of sounds far from the orchestral, organic sounds of previous recordings.  It’s an odd cross between modern instrumentation and traditional song structures, but it works.  Dear John isn’t the kind of album that’s going to leave you after a brief, flirtatious fling.  It will entertain, it will engage, and it will sustain repeated listens, and that’s comforting in and of itself.

MP3: Loney Dear “Airport Surroundings”
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Buy: Loney Dear Dear John