A Camp is a side project of Swedish singer Nina Persson (The Cardigans). The story of this goes back to 1998 when she made a number of recordings together with her fellow countryman Niclas Frisk from the band Atomic Swing. Both thought the results were disappointing, so that the recordings ended up on the shelf. After Persson had sung a number of beautiful duets with Mark Linkous on his Sparklehorse
… CD It's A Wonderful Life, she asked if he would like to listen to the tapes and if he thought it worth producing the whole thing. And so it happened, so that suddenly there is now an A Camp CD. Of course we don't know what those original '98 recordings sounded like, but Persson and Frisk probably had too much self-criticism. The quality of the songs is very high. They are unmistakably Cardigans songs (read: Nina Persson songs) but the musical setting sounds more American. We mainly detect influences from traditional styles such as country, rock and folk. Producer Linkous, however, has managed to make it sound like one natural whole. Within this, Persson is given all the space to excel. The consistent quality of the song material makes it difficult to identify real outliers. As far as I am concerned, the beautiful cover of The Bluest Eyes In Texas deserves a special mention. This song is originally from country band Restless Heart and was previously heard in this performance on the soundtrack of the movie Boys Don't Cry (2000). It is hoped that the release of A Camp will not herald the end of The Cardigans. But we must be grateful to Mark Linkous that this beautiful record has seen the light of day after all. (MvP)more
