By Jonathan Funke

Norway has gotten really good at taking ancient organic matter and turning it into something light and sweet to indulge nostalgic American appetites.  

One such commodity is crude oil, which slakes the thirst of commuter tanks boasting Eisenhower-era fuel economy. Another is Duper Sessions, guitarist Sondre Lerche’s full-length disc that channels Cole Porter.

The songs are Lerche’s own, but the spirit is the U.S. heartland in the spring of 1960. The Bay of Pigs is still just a second-rate tourist spot, Vietnam is France’s problem and being in love is fashionable again.  

Dig this, Daddy-O: “Don’t be ridiculous sweet darling / It’s so unlike you to be blue / You had them the moment you walked in / Oh everyone’s rooting for you”!

What helps Duper Sessions succeed for Lerche is that the reedy-larynxed little bugger seems to believe it himself. Maybe it’s the surname: when Taco, Sinead or Madonna evoked their forebears, it was with a wink and a synthesizer. Sondre really wants to be Chet Baker without the drama. At 23—I hate to sayit—he’s almost pulled it off.

Recorded at Duper Studios in his native Bergen, Duper Sessions is the accidentally perfect title for an album that sneaks the sunny tonality of American innocence back onto its pedestal. I mean, how can you croon like this in the shadow of the Bush Administration? What happened to the truthy wallow of Sondre’s adolescence? Did he go on the Halliburton payroll to support the wife?

No matter—and just as well that this retro portrait comes from Norway. What has, say, Sweden ever given me except a disastrous relationship with a woman who was mad, capricious and just plain mean? Sondre Lerche offers reassurance that a nice American boy like me couldn’t possibly bear any responsibility for such a debacle, and that happy new conquests lie ahead.

April 6. w/Tracy Bonham. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (at Bowery), 212-533-2111; 8, $20.