Magnolia Shade’s Nordicana debut: a Danish breakup EP whose narrator can’t be trusted

Americana has always travelled well, but it rarely sounds homesick for somewhere it never came from. That’s the interesting tension in Magnolia Shade, a Danish duo who take the pedal steel, the harmonies and the dusty country-rock guitars of the American South and filter them through a very Scandinavian kind of weather. They have even given the blend a name: Nordicana. It’s a cheeky label for something the Nordic roots scene has circled for years, and their debut EP, You Never Could, is the first time they’ve pushed it out at full volume.

The pairing is songwriter and guitarist Jan Kølle and vocalist Susanne Kristensen. Kølle came up in the Danish band Mojo Hands before going solo, and it was during the sessions for his solo album Old Songs that the duo took shape: Kristensen arrived to sing backing vocals, took the lead on the duet Rainy Day, and the collaboration outgrew the record. In Magnolia Shade the roles are clear. He writes and plays; she is the voice and, as the band puts it, the interpreter.

Susanne Kristensen seated beneath a magnolia tree as Jan Kolle plays acoustic guitar — Photo: Magnolia Shade / Ignota PR and Promotion

The title track is the obvious way in, and the band says as much in the release, calling it perhaps the best example of their sound. On the surface it’s a classic breakup song. But the narrator, so sure she knows the truth about the man walking away, slowly gives herself away. Maybe her fear of being left is what made the leaving happen. A self-fulfilling prophecy set to a melancholic melody and a brisk country-rock push is a smarter hook than most debut singles manage.

It’s also a change of gear. The duo’s first singles, Just for a Moment and Prayer in Heaven, Chance in Hell, leaned quiet and ballad-shaped. Here the guitars are turned up and a full band fills the room: Per Solgaard on bass, Mikael Buus Bundgaard on drums, Rasmus Grønborg on piano and Hammond organ, with Lasse Frimodt Christensen adding pedal steel to the closer. Kølle produced the five tracks himself; Vital Leão mixed and mastered them.

Magnolia Shade songwriter Jan Kolle playing acoustic guitar against a tree — Photo: Magnolia Shade / Ignota PR and Promotion

The rest of the EP widens the lens. Out of Compassion goes darker, drawing on a real killing that made headlines; the band is careful to say it isn’t a political statement, but a song about how quickly empathy drains away once people start asking what the victim should have done. West aches for a home that may only survive in memory, and Highway One turns California’s coastal road into a stand-in for better days ahead. The closer, Across the World, is the most personal: Kølle wrote it about the day he scattered his father’s ashes at sea, and, according to the band, it has already won a songwriting award from the US magazine American Songwriter.

Magnolia Shade have also been featured by Americana Highways and picked up airplay on Women of Substance Radio, a decent foothold for a band singing about Highway One from across an ocean.

You Never Could came out on October 2 as a five-track EP, with the title track and Out of Compassion as the focus songs. For a scene that often sounds like it’s borrowing someone else’s accent, Nordicana at least admits where it’s really from.

Tags: Danish bands, debut EPs, Jan Kølle, Magnolia Shade, Mojo Hands, Susanne Kristensen