 There’s the title cut: or rather, the George Shearing instrumental to which Indin has set her own lyrics, and whose title—“And then I wrote”—she (re)makes her own, in tribute to the female poets she has mobilised for her project. Indin’s feisty words against Shearing’s cool vibe create a productive tension, as the female practitioner of a male- dominated craft takes over the “master’s tools”, not so much to dismantle his house as to rebuild it, driven both by her need for liberation —“Speak your mind, pronounce it”—and by her desire for a revivification of a revered tradition—“I first heard this song / I had to hum along, / N’ then I wrote these lines / Substantial words that rhyme.” Rather than being cowed by her great predecessors, or crushed by the continuing injustices of her age (“Bewildered as I am / In these modern times”), Indin resolves to make her mark, on the musical world and in her life as a woman and mother. Because, as she writes, “Who gives in speechless? / Careless? Wordless?” Well, not Sonja Indin, that’s for sure. “These texts have the power to see through one of the central dilemmas of human life: how to reconcile artistic production with biological reproduction. “Care work“ traditionally provided by women, has just as traditionally been discounted as “real“ labour (i.e. deserving of remuneration) by society at large. Here is Indin at work, as a singer, composer and author: in “Mom’s Care“ Sonja Indin pens an anthem of maternal solidarity. “ The fact that “care work”, traditionally provided by women, has just as traditionally been discounted as “real” labour (i.e. deserving of remuneration) by society at large. Here is Indin at work, as a singer, composer, and author: in “Mom’s Care”, she pens an anthem of maternal solidarity— Mothers of the Earth, unite!—while in “It all seems like nothing at all” she ventriloquises the voice of misogynistic disdain for care work, but in a groove so nervy that it serves as an implicit riposte to that disdain. “There are also hymns to female empowerment beyond the function of motherhood, like “Femme phénoménale“, Indin’s remarkable French rewriting of a celebrated, sensuous poem by Maya Angelou. And in “Expecting you – Accepting you”, written for her still unborn child, Indin conflates the roles of mother and artist in one warm embrace: “I wrote a song about accepting you / No matter what you’ll do.” (Rafaël Newman)
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