A bad mood at the breakfast table can ripple through a whole household by lunch. A kind word can do the same. That simple, beautiful idea sits at the heart of ‘Balancing Small Things On Sharp Edges,’ the gorgeous new album from Danish singer and songwriter Tina Dico, out now in North America through DMP/Fontana North/Universal Music Canada. It’s her first release on a Canadian label, and she celebrated with three sold out Canadian album launch concerts: two nights at Ottawa’s Red Bird, and a return to Toronto at the Allied Music Centre Theatre at Massey Hall.
Five times a chart topper in Denmark, Dico made the album with her husband and musical partner, Helgi Jonsson, at Big Spring Studio, their home studio in Seltjarnarnes, Iceland. It’s a warm, luminous record about connection, family, time and uncertainty, and the delicate act of keeping your balance in a world that never stops talking.
Lead single “Surfing” captures that feeling perfectly. “To me, ‘Surfing’ is about how we’re all connected,” Dico says. “You feel it every day in a family, where every person’s mood, character, words and actions affect everyone else. But it’s obviously true on a much bigger scale. What one person throws into the world ripples outward. We’re one big ocean of movement, all trying to keep our balance.”
Dico sings and plays acoustic guitar on “Surfing.” Jonsson plays electric guitars, piano, synths, vibraphone, percussion and trombones and adds backing vocals. Dennis Ahlgren plays electric guitars, bass and percussion, Magnús Trygvason Eliassen is on drums, Klemens Bittmann on violin and Unnur Jónsdóttir on cello. The couple produced and arranged it together, and Jonsson engineered, mixed and mastered the track.
The album’s second single, “This Fire!,” finds Dico teaming up for the first time with fellow Iceland-based artist Emilíana Torrini, the voice behind the global hit “Jungle Drum” and “Gollum’s Song” from The Lord of the Rings. Dico wrote it about the freedom that arrives once the newness of a long career fade.
“When you’ve had a long career, there comes a time when you realise you can never be new again,” she says. “You can get better, braver, more skilled, more yourself, but you can’t recreate that first moment when people discovered you. “This Fire!” dives into what replaces that newness: character, freedom and a fire that burns steadily and no less fiercely.”
