Much like another impressive modern day singer-songwriter, Mia Doi Todd, Sweden’s Frida Hyvonen knows how to draw attention without resorting to acts of sensationalism. Even when she sings something sexually suggestive, it’s purely in the context of reciting a greater story and revealing a deeper truth. “Once I Was A Serene Teenaged Child” explores with great sensitivity and honesty her first brushes with budding womanhood and its conflicting emotions: “the feeling of pride and the loneliness to it.” That loneliness haunts the ten elliptical tracks of her 2005 Scandinavian debut, released worldwide in 2006. Hyvonen sits at her piano and opens her heart. Flugelhorns, vibraphones and trumpets occasionally bump up the pace with satisfying results (“Come Another Night”). But the true strength of these recordings rests in their simplicity, the quiet, austere authority that Hyvonen extends. “N.Y.” recalls the melancholy of Blue-era Joni Mitchell, while echos of other ‘70s singer-songwriter icons from Judy Collins and Laura Nyro to Judee Sill can be gleaned from the glorious melodies of “Djuna” and “Straight Thin Line.”