The new album from this eccentric Swedish singer-songwriter-pianist is a huge growth from her endearingly minimal debut, 2006’s Until Death Comes. This time the songs are as fragile and achingly beautiful, but filigreed with strings, horns and percussion. An acknowledged fan of the great Judee Sill, Frida also bears comparison with tour-mates Jens Lekman and Jose Gonzalez, as well as the classic pillars of high melancholy such as Cohen, Mitchell etc., but ultimately she’s too kooky to sound like anyone else.

I get the feeling that Frida will never exactly be the life of the party, but yes, you could call these songs inspirational, in their own depressing way. Sweden must be a land of enigmas, because Frida plays slow ballads that sound like barrelhouse blues, and can infuse a song about dancing to Kylie with the gravitas of a Calvinist hymn. In my private universe, Gold FM will be flogging this album 20 years from now, perhaps sandwiched between Talk Talk and that song about the storm by that guy from Supertramp.