Danish, London based musician, producer and vocalist MARIE DAHLSTROM releases her highly anticipated second album ‘A Good Life’ via her own JFH Records label. The release of new album ‘A Good Life’ today arrives exactly three years to the day since the release of her debut album ‘Like Sand’ in 2020, and features collaborations with acts including Jay Prince, Kofi Stone, Cory McKenzie Tribbett and Delleile Ankrah.
Working with some of her closest musical allies across the album on its production, notably Young Poet/Ninja Tune signee Conor Albert and her partner Dan Diggas – who has previously lent his talents to the works of Mahalia and Central Cee; braiding together sun-kissed RnB, Nordic jazz, and resonant neo-soul, Dahlstrom strives to create a tapestry that presents life completely and truthfully, where leaning into moments of the dark and the light which make the days – and the music – all the richer.
Hers is a voice with the kind of divinity that could only be god-given. That sense of soulfulness – so hard to quantify but unmistakable to the ear – meant that Marie Dahlstrom went far beyond crafting sounds but rather singular worlds, where mood, ambience and emotion were instruments to be commanded like any other, pushing the parameters of what RnB is and can be.
Marie Dahlstrom contains multitudes, a thousand selves co-existing and contradicting at once. A singer-songwriter. A mother. A producer. A partner. “These different pockets of life also create friction,” she acknowledges.
The album is about dismantling the idea that your validity as an artist diminishes when it’s not the focal point of your life, that being a parent negates creativity. Marie went on to say:
“I’ve been figuring out where I belong, what I’m supposed to do and how I fit into all this – because I am so much more than an artist. When you have big dreams or goals and you see time being taken away from achieving them, and going towards something else – how do you make that a positive experience? There are always challenges, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good life. A Good Life is based on reflections from a few years of my life with many changes and adjustments. It’s an album about human interaction in all its complexity.”
The scope of Marie’s ambition not only for herself, but those she admires, was something she once could explore with abandon – but the arrival of her son meant that she had to recalibrate the woman she had been with the mother she had become.
‘A Good Life’ is a testament to her determination to embrace every dimension of who she is without limitation, to hold onto her passions even when they are no longer the most salient priority in her life. “I wanted to make sure I kept my essence for him,” she insists – and so A Good Life was nurtured in the spare evenings when she put her son to bed, written during a transitional period lived out of boxes between London and Copenhagen as she and her partner sought to renovate their permanent home.
From the introspective RnB-kissed duet of resilience that was lead single ‘Clouds’ featuring MiC LOWRY’s Delleile Ankrah, and the understated grooves of ‘Make It Up To You’ featuring Birmingham-hailing rapper Kofi Stone, to the nocturnal piano-led ‘Too Much To Ask’ and the shuffling beat of the Jay Prince-featuring ‘Let Me In’, Marie Dahlstrom’s spectacular second album ‘A Good Life’ is an instinctive, spontaneous and arrestingly honest depiction of an era of her life – a snapshot in time.
Marie Dahlstrom is supported and praised widely at press by the likes of Billboard, NPR, Complex, The Line Of Best Fit, Mixtape Madness, NYLON, New Wave Magazine, Wonderland Magazine and more, as well as being listed as a ‘Sleeper Pick’ by Joe Budden (twice) on The Joe Budden Podcast (the most influential podcast in R&B and hip-hop globally). Marie Dahlstrom has also received substantial radio airplay from BBC 1Xtra DJ’s Jamz Supernova, DJ Target, Toddla T and Rinse FM’s Jyoty.
‘A Good Life’ was released on Monday (22nd May) via Marie’s own JFH Records label…have a listen below…
Must Listens: A Good Life, The World Feels A Little Better, If I Belong (Freestyle), On My Own
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