Tina Refsnes is a folk musician from Norway, growing up in the seaside town of Florø before moving to Oslo via Liverpool. You might not believe it when listening but No One Knows That You’re Lost is her début album, recorded in Toronto with producer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas, The Weather Station), with Eirik Stordrange, Don Kerr and Mike O’Brien providing the backing instrumentation and vocals.
Opener ‘I Don’t Know’ is a perfect introduction to the album, a soothing yet energetic brand of folk which acknowledges doubt yet refuses to submit to it, playing like a perfect antidote to a bad day:
“Oh the wane can beat you down and bind you
Leave you blind to the thought
that things could ever look as bright again.
Oh but things will pick up again
I just cant tell you when
but things will pick up again soon.”
The writing is sharp and often beautiful, much of it based on past comfort and present uncertainty. ‘Upside Down Clouds’, with it’s moodier guitars and dramatic vocals, is a good example, as Refsnes pines for the simplicity and familiarity of the Florø coast (“It feels as though the shore that I know is no longer there”). ‘Alaska’ explores the double bind of being an artist, the urge to “show them some more of yourself” but all the while wanting to hide away, in this case through escape to the natural peace of the titular location: “I’ve heard that it’s so quiet there that not even the wind will talk to you”. As with any folk record, heartbreak pays a visit, with ‘Song About Trust’ detailing the disintegration of a relationship in viscerally outspoken tones (“This song’s about trust and how we must talk to our demons like strangers”), while ‘Put It Away’ stems from the doubt of past pain (“I don’t keep secrets anymore as I’ve been made to tell”) and develops into a plea with herself:
“Just don’t break my heart because I can’t break yours.
There’s a city that hold me for dead
and the voice that goes on in my head
saying you’re such a cheat your too easy to beat
put your heart away.”
The influences here are numerous and varied, knitting together to create something fresh and new. Joni Mitchell is an obvious one, but there are shades of Natalie Prass and Laura Marling and Joanna Newsom too, as well as the variation across tracks. ‘Spoilt Rotten Blues’ is a laid back country song, like some long-lost collaboration between Samantha Crain, First Aid Kit and Feist, ‘City City’ and ‘Song About Trust ‘ are slow ballads reminiscent of Sharon van Etten and ‘A Million Things’ is a gentle, evocative strum akin to something from Laura Gibson. While the style changes slightly across the record, the general ambience remains true throughout (a mood captured in the imagery of the ‘I Don’t Know’ video), giving a great sense of cohesiveness and allowing sensations and themes to develop without explicit reinforcement.
No One Knows That You’re Lost is an album inspired by the Norwegian coast and a human interior, by tight itching doubts and wide open spaces. Here, fragility, strength and beauty become one and the same, parts of a landscape in constant flux yet remaining fundamentally unchanged. Basically, it’s the sort of album we are honoured to première. Have a listen to the full album below:
No One Knows That You’re Lost is out today on Vestkyst Records, and you can buy it from all the usual places.