Biography
Kristin Asbjørnsen, a Norwegian singer/songwriter and composer, has produced an eclectic catalog spanning jazz, pop, world music, experimental forms, improvisation, and film scoring. Her recording activity commenced in the mid-1990s through affiliations with Kvitretten, Krøyt, and Dadafon, after which she launched a solo trajectory around the millennium that yielded Top Five chart placement in Norway along with international critical recognition. Born in 1971, she pursued formal studies in the jazz program at Trondheim Music Conservatory. Her first album appearance came in 1996 via Voices, a Spellemannsprisen-nominated release from the experimental vocal quartet Kvitretten, of which she was a member; she later appeared on the group’s subsequent efforts Everything Turns (1999) and Kloden Er En Snurrebass Som Snurrer Oss (2002). She next entered the catalog of the avant-garde trio Krøyt with the album Sub (1997). That ensemble’s follow-up, Low (1999), received the Spellemannsprisen award for 2000 in the Åpen Klasse category, while the 2001 releases Body Electric EP and One Heart Is Too Small featured the lineup completed by Øyvind Brandtsegg on vibraphone and sampler plus Thomas T. Dahl on guitar. Concurrently, Asbjørnsen issued her initial solo album, Smak Av Himmel, Spor Av Jord (2001), and contributed to Dadafon’s second album, And I Can't Stand Still (2001). The band, established a few years prior, blends pop and jazz with love ballads and African rhythms in a manner that is both inventive and accessible to wider audiences; its roster lists Asbjørnsen as vocalist and bandleader alongside Jostein Ansnes on guitar and vocals, Øyvind Engen on cello and vocals, Eirik Øien on bass and vocals, and Martin Langlie on drums. Dadafon debuted on record in 1998 with Coloured Moods and later placed two further albums, Harbour (2004) and Lost Love Chords (2005), inside the Norwegian Top 20. Solo projects nevertheless brought her greatest commercial impact, as both Wayfaring Stranger: A Spiritual Songbook (2006) and The Night Shines Like the Day (2009) reached the Top Five.
Albums