There are certain singers you feel you know from the very first song. Whether it's the intimacy of their voice or the subtle shading of their delivery, a whole personality takes shape in our imagination. Rebekka Bakken is such a singer. With her highly acclaimed Universal Music debut The Art of How To Fall in 2003, she effortlessly created her own space in a crowded music scene with an album whose lyrics resonated with meaning and whose melodies dissolved musical boundaries.

Her follow up Is That You?, saw her she go deeper into the moods and grooves that so excited the critics and delighted the public on her debut. Revealing her growing maturity as a singer and her skill as songwriter and arranger with new originals, she says, "Music has always come from a spot of joy in me. It's never been work, just pure joy, it got established in me during my teenage years and it’s never left me."

Born and raised in Norway, Rebekka moved to New...

There are certain singers you feel you know from the very first song. Whether it's the intimacy of their voice or the subtle shading of their delivery, a whole personality takes shape in our imagination. Rebekka Bakken is such a singer. With her highly acclaimed Universal Music debut The Art of How To Fall in 2003, she effortlessly created her own space in a crowded music scene with an album whose lyrics resonated with meaning and whose melodies dissolved musical boundaries.

Her follow up Is That You?, saw her she go deeper into the moods and grooves that so excited the critics and delighted the public on her debut. Revealing her growing maturity as a singer and her skill as songwriter and arranger with new originals, she says, "Music has always come from a spot of joy in me. It's never been work, just pure joy, it got established in me during my teenage years and it’s never left me."

Born and raised in Norway, Rebekka moved to New York in 1994, where she remained for eight years, it was an experience that helped her define her musical personality and discover, as she puts it, "Where my musical space is." On returning to Europe, she performed in her own right and with several artists. With Is That You? she revealed the next installment of her exciting musical odyssey of self discovery. Listening to album from beginning to end, it was as if every composition sounded like it had to be recorded, "I have my style and I get myself deeper and deeper in my own thing which is a never ending journey," she says. "I just have a lot of joy from doing music and the kind of style I have really comes from this."

After her eight years in New York she needed to find a place to be both comfortable and creative, finally settling in one of Europe’s hippest metropolitan cities Vienna, loving it so much she it has been her home for past three years. "Vienna is a very beautiful city, very pleasant with a lot of peace and quiet, even though it is a big city at the same time," says the singer. She enjoys the peace and quiet, if for no other reason than that it allows her to collect her spirits and recharge her batteries. Ever since the 2003 release of her first solo album the charismatic and sensual singer-songwriter has been the talk of the town. Her songs are ennobled by her three-octave vocal range, which lets her shift back and forth playfully, in a relaxed and harmonious manner, between pop, folk, jazz and R&B. And while her recordings have developed, her increasing popularity and public demand mean she has sold-out concerts everywhere.

Winning the coveted Deutscher Phonoverband JazzAward, for her debut solo album, her follow up Is That You? (2005), was showered with similar glowing praise, with the likes of German music magazine Musikexpress saying: "Bakken opens up musical horizons ranging from the American Midwest into magically charged Scandinavian spiritual landscapes.”

Although Bakken's career has skyrocketed in the past three years, she has worked hard for it, starting young with violin classes. But she also showed a prodigious talent for singing as a child and taught herself to play piano so that she could accompany herself. The major stylistic shift finally occurred when she was a teenager. Having sung Norwegian folk and church songs to that point, she started gaining experience with funk, soul and rock with local bands. From then on, her path was all marked out for her. And nothing was able to distract her from it, not even when she started out to study philosophy and economics.

In 1994, she made a huge leap of faith, over to the other side of the “big pond”. As she describes; "I went to New York to play music there and I got a real shock when nobody called me up to make me into a big star. So I wandered through the city and cleaned up my apartment five times a day - until I noticed that I had to do something if I wanted to get something in my life." And that was point when her talents as a singer and songwriter began to blossom.  "I wrote because I enjoyed it. Not because I wanted to show it to others or recite it, but rather in order to 'research' myself and my own thoughts,” she said. "It is as though I make myself available to the song, open myself to it. I don't force anything, I just let it happen. Things come to me, and I sing them."

With a new, creative raison d'être and purpose to her music it was only a matter of time until somebody noticed her natural talent. Universal Music offered her a chance to produce and record her own material – the result was the stunning 2003 album The Art Of How To Fall. Following this with Is That You? in 2005, she said of the record "The production of the second album released a bundle of energy and gave me confidence that I could continue as an artist", and just a year later she poured her new creative energy into her third album, I Keep My Cool; fuelling her creative fire still further.

(Shrink Biography)