Album review: TINA DICO – Whispers
Finest Gramophone [Release date 25.08.14]
Since teaming up with Icelandic singer/trombonist Helgi Jónsson, it’s all gone a bit ‘Pete Tong’ for Danish singer songwriter Tina Dico. At least, from a creative output perspective.
The perfect foil on stage, Jónsson has given Dico a stability in her private life that is at odds with her Leonard Cohen influenced bedsit songs of unrequited matters of the heart. In The Red (2005) and Count To Ten (2007) – produced either side of her 30th birthday – were perhaps her finest hours, and while her later works have been far from ‘duffers’ they’ve lacked the credibility that bled from the grooves of her earlier LPs.
The fact that she and Jónsson are now married and that’s she’s the mother of two young children is probably no coincidence, and like its predecessor Where Do You Go To Disapppear?, Whispers is a patchy affair.
As always, there are some marvellous songs – the brooding ‘As Far As Love Goes’ and title track show an almost PJ Harvey intensity, and ‘You Don’t Step Into Love’ is up there with the best of her work. Elsewhere, it’s OK, but is just a bit ‘wishy-washy’.
But when she hits form – as on the aforementioned tracks – Whispers bodes well for another creative chapter in Tina Dico’s career. But I suspect we’re going to have to wait until her hormones settle down and the kids are packed off to school. In the short term, potty training is likely to be priority #1. ***
Review by Pete Whalley
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