“Love Has Left the Room” – A Camp
At once expansive and intimate, “Love Has Left the Room” shimmers with the large yet delicate pop energy of something from the ’60s that didn’t rock, with Cardigans front woman Nina Persson here playing the part of Lesley Gore, maybe, or even Vicki Carr. We get the orchestral flourishes, the lyrical and melodic melodrama, and the engaging pattern of verse-tension and chorus-release that gave that sort of music its radio-friendly kick.
As with “Airplane Blues” (above), this song likewise has one particular moment that makes the whole thing come together, for me: it’s the elongated “you” in the chorus, in the line “I’ll let go if you just tell me”—a note that pretty much epitomizes the bittersweet interpersonal stalemate the song describes. The “you” is offered just one whole step down from the “I” but in a separate, disconsolate harmonic context; even the way the note is held, a half breath more than seems seemly, speaks as well as the words do about the pangs associated with a relationship that disintegrates without closure.
Persson launched A Camp way back in 1997, to be a sort of experimental side project from her regular work fronting the Cardigans, but at this point the Cardigans are on hold and A Camp has had the more recent success—its self-titled 2001 debut won four Grammys in Sweden. “Love Has Left the Room” is from the trio’s second album, Colonia, which was released last month on Nettwerk Records. MP3 via Spin.com.
