Cake On Cake Issue #38

Hymns I Remember (Sleepy)

By Leah Urbom
Published: December 1st, 2008 | 12:00am

With the charm of a grammatically incorrect foreign exchange student, Helena Sundin allows us to peek at her swing set through the knotholes of her third album, Hymns I Remember. The 27-year-old Swedish multi-multi-instrumentalist is a one-woman band of sorts — versed in piano, cello, guitar, flute, hand drum, and so on.

In her frilliest Sunday dress, Sundin coos tiny, waltzy lullabies of breakups, European love, and classical radio. Her missteps in wording and simple observations can be endearing, “He’s just a blond thing / That dress like Conway Twitty / And he broke your heart” (“Sunday Girl”), or “Some strong coffee / In a really small, small cup” (“Visiting the Venice Biennale”). But Cake On Cake can’t slide by on sheer cuteness alone — there is some sickeningly sweet filler; as she sings on “A Valentine Card To Heaven,” “It’s Valentine’s Day / I wish that I could call you and say ‘hey.’”

The instrumentals are so adorably twinkly that it’s fun to imagine Sundin’s backing band consists of a cymbal-bashing monkey, a toy soldier on percussion, and a button-eyed teddy bear handling the keys with his curly stuffed paws. But this childlike preciousness begins to wear by midpoint, and one has to wonder how long she can continue to skip-to-the-loo through her musical field of daisies before naptime rolls around.

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