Marcel Winatschek

A Decade Late to Jenny Wilson

I read the name and thought: who? I read the title—Like a Fading Rainbow—and thought: sounds soppy. Then I pressed play and made involuntary sounds at my screen.

Jenny Wilson is Swedish, has been making music since 1997, has two albums behind her, and runs her own label, Goldmedal Recordings, which just put out her third record Hardships!. None of this had reached me. I spent over a decade in a world where Jenny Wilson existed and managed not to notice. Every indie fan who’s been on board since the first hour is welcome to come over and tear me apart. I’d deserve it.

The video is the kind of thing you watch twice—once because you weren’t ready, and once to confirm what you just experienced. I don’t know exactly what she’s doing with the staging or the pacing, but it lands somewhere specific. Sometimes you arrive very late to something that was always going to matter to you. This is one of those times.