There’s a moment when you’re on a plane and it breaks through the clouds to reveal the warmth and glory of the sun. Well, that’s how I felt the first time I listened to Birgit de Priester’s new album Made 4 Fun. Birgit is a songwriter and producer from the Netherlands who debuted back in 2021 with the understated but intoxicating EP okay.
This is classic songwriting that favours storytelling with warm delivery packed with personality and analogue arrangements, not digital tweakery, that set the senses tingling. Rolling chords canter across tracks with electric guitar for emphasis, strings drift in and out, bass and drums anchor but never dominate and there’s the occasional beatific swell of an Omnichord which always brings an ethereal quality to a song. Birgit talks about drawing on the “mystical folk of Aldous Harding, the stoic indie pop of Cate Le Bon, the narrative warmth of Andy Shauf, and the raw songwriting of Adrianne Lenker” and that sense of intrigue and otherworldliness is woven through this album.
One of the most impressive aspects of the album is the control Birgit has over her voice. Each track demonstrates her ability to explore what her voice can do. Vowels can be stretched as on the opening track, ‘Meditating in Asia’, which also brings in a smoky nightclub quality that carries over into the title track ‘Made 4 Fun’ and ‘Norway’; think Kings of Convenience backing Marianne Faithful or Chrissie Hynde.
Birgit seems to create a character for each song like an actor playing multiple parts in a film. Her delivery can be crystal clear on a track like ‘Snowing in Springtime’, with its 1950s reverb, haunting strings and brass, plus powerful bursts of unexpected harmonies, or the tremolo-enhanced shimmer on ‘La Petit Mort’ (the phrase used for the brief loss of consciousness post-orgasm). One quote that rings true from Birgit is “sigh along melancholically while laughing at oneself in the mirror” a perfect description of the Yin and Yang that runs through Made 4 Fun.
These are absorbing songs that unfold and never rush to a chorus (if there is one) on an album that blends dreamy folk/pop, a dash of theatre, and some late-night cabaret. Birgit de Priester is keeping the art of the song alive and in rude health with intelligent bitter-sweet songwriting and beautiful arrangements that match Birgit’s line in ‘Made 4 Fun’: “take the sour with some sugar on the side.”
Birgit De Priester socials: Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube and Birgit also has a sound design website with her partner Morten.
NB: Birgit formerly recorded under the name Mia Porter.
Review by Paul F Cook
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