Let me describe what I did today. I woke up, and I got a
sandwich, and I listened to Jens Lekman’s Night Falls Over Kortedala. Now, let
me talk about the sandwich. All throughout my first year and a half of college
if you had walked to the nearest Subway and asked what Steve Goff gets on his
sandwich you would have been told buffalo chicken, flatbread, American cheese,
and lettuce. More recently I traded out the buffalo chicken for teriyaki, I
switched to Italian herb and cheese, and I dropped the lettuce. And while that
sandwich was quite satisfactory for me, it filled my needs, I made a change
today. With Jens whispering in my ear, when I got to the counter and they asked
what type of cheese I would like, I pondered and replied Swiss. Now I had never
had Swiss up to this point, but something about it seemed so obvious, with
Sweden’s premier singer songwriter in my head and Switzerland’s premier cheese
in my stomach, everything was alright. And
that’s how I feel about Jens, even though of course he is not Swiss, he is just
different enough from American that it makes him interesting to put on your
sandwich… err I mean listen too.
You
might think when listening to the first two tracks of Night Falls Over
Kortedala that Jens Lekman is a very serious song writer and that he is
obsessed with his first kiss. Both songs are serious in tone, sporting lyrics
like “I would never kiss anyone who didn’t burn me like the sun” and “I see
myself on my deathbed saying I wish I had loved less”. And while those songs
are probably the two most serious on the album, and are by far not the most
emotional, which is something immediately refreshing about Jens. The third song
of the album is the one that really sets the tone of the record and that would
be Postcards to Nina. The song is the story of Jens pretending to be the
boyfriend of a lesbian friend so that she can continue to see her girlfriend. As
Jens meets the father of his friend Nina, the song becomes funny as Lekman
stumbles over his words, gets kicked by Nina under the table, and they all sit
down to listen to one of Jens’ records. Other songs on the record are similarly
silly, preserving a sense of wit without really straying from Lekman’s
melancholy style of songwriting. In terms of how Lekman straddles seriousness
and humor I would compare him to the American folksinger Loudon Wainwright III.
Loudon too was able to convey strong emotions in offbeat songs and then turn
around and sing a very serious somber song.
What makes Lekman unique of course
is his style. Using heavy samplings of songs that sound like they could be the
theme song for a cruise commercial, the entire album is reminiscent of the
title track off of the Avalanches’ Since I Left You. It has that sort of feel
that makes it extremely strange to listen too but at the same time feels right.
The production is very good, never really interfering with Jens’ deadpan
delivery but giving the songs something extra that they would not otherwise
have.
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