Josefine Lindstrand: There Will Be Stars

Josefine Lindstrand, the Swedish singer, is a graduate of Denmark's Rhythmic Music Conservatory, the innovative establishment where Django Bates put his own special spin on the role of professor. But though she's been a key member of Bates's big-band stoRMChaser, Lindstrand eludes categories, working with pop and electronics artists, too. This arresting album of exquisitely pitched settings for the writings of early 20th-century American poet Sara Teasdale might reach anything from Joanna Newsom's audience to Madeleine Peyroux's. Lindstrand's high-register whisper is mostly minimally accompanied here, but the drifting The Kiss wraps the trumpet musings of Gunnar Halle around her, the lazily swinging Jewels, with its wah-wah trumpet, suggests the Peyroux appeal, Winter Night Song twists expectations with raw free-jazzy detours, and Thomas Backman's smoky baritone-sax furnishes an apposite backdrop to the love song Gray Eyes. It's all mostly wistfully slow, but the singing is remarkable, the tunes and arrangements distinctive, and the jazz restrained but explicit enough to keep you guessing.