Saturday, March 29, 2008

ARTIST: All my metaphors fell flat

I've wanted to post about Jens Lekman for a while, but just haven't ever gotten around to it. Which is kind of funny - because no-one has been playing as consistently in my car and on my iPod as Jens over the last couple of months...

But anyways, here he is. Jens Lekman. The Swedish singer who's mastered the ironic-storytelling-put-to-sampled-beats-and-string- sections category of music today. All of his stuff has a kind of retro feel to it, like it's been salvaged from some old phonograph and made relevant again through some new interpretation. But the best part of his music isn't his style, it's what he says with that style. Jens' lyrics often tell stories and paint pictures that are almost always a bit comical, and more often than not revelatory in some kind of subtle way. Man, I just love this guy.

Anyway, here's a taste off last year's album, Night Falls Over Kortedala. It's a pretty poignant lament about being unable to express to his sister how helpless and detached he's feeling - and it has just one of the greatest opening lines: I took my sister down to the ocean / but the ocean made me feel stupid. Some other favorites from the album are I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You, Your Arms Around Me, and A Postcard to Nina, to name just a few. Enjoy.

from the album Night Falls Over Kortedala (Amazon/iTunes)



from Swedish Radio P3 Live Session



2 comments:

(LEEbot) said...

this blog rules, we should be friends.

http://musictastebud.blogspot.com/

James said...

good choice. big fan. makes music fun.