Jens Lekman is homeless. “I was looking forward to it—being homeless,” he says, describing the final weeks he spent in his last apartment.
Suddenly reconsidering his word choice, the polite Swedish singer-songwriter best known for singing of a world that revolves around late-night missed trams and late-year misunderstandings, tries to explain himself more clearly.
“I don’t know if ‘homeless’ is actually the right word for it,” he elaborates. “Perhaps I’m more of a couch-surfer.”
On the phone from Bloomington, Ind.—the city where indie label Secretly Canadian, which has just released his new full length album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, is located—Lekman reports that, having completed the record, he has left what he calls “officially the worst apartment in Gothenburg” for a few months of shows on the road.
“There was a specific sound every time I recorded in my flat,” he explains of his former basement-level residence in the Swedish city’s neighborhood of Kortedala. “I wanted to make a record that was inspired by the world. When I looked at the window, all I could see was a brick wall.”
Much as Lekman longed for a different environment to homebrew his latest melancholy pop opus, Kortedala, which became his farewell album to the neighborhood, did not suffer. The album’s 12 tracks are a rich exploration into Lekman’s songs: a candid, sometimes comic and often lonely place where liberally and craftily sampled instruments decorate his compositions, in his words, “like ornaments on a Christmas tree.”
The album’s emotional centerpiece may be “Your Arms Around Me,” which offers both sad and hilarious moments in the narrator’s trip to the emergency room (from his wild post-injury passed-out dreams to his awakening next to a disinterested lover on a “dirty hospital couch”).
The recording’s doleful strings, lush harp runs and plucky piano surround Lekman’s voice as he shifts from his trademark sad sack baritone to an affable falsetto. It’s but one in a dozen triumphs, from moments of orchestral bombast on “And I Remember Every Kiss” to the youthful reminiscing of “It Was A Strange Time In My Life,” that grace the album.
Kortedala, in fact, was such a success in Sweden that it climbed to the top of the charts the week it was released. Lekman, ever humble, doesn’t let it inflate his ego. “No one buys records in Sweden anymore,” he explains. “I think it means I sold a thousand copies or something.”
Nor does it create any distance in Lekman’s mind between performer and audience. Each night after the singer finishes playing with his nine-piece touring band, he’s having a friend do a low-key post-set, so as to have an opportunity to let those in attendance talk not just to him but to each other as well.
“I want people to stick around. I like talking to people and hanging out,” he says. “I want to make them miss the last bus home.”
It seems that, at least when Lekman is in town, everyone can afford to be homeless for just a little while.
Oct. 27, Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.), 212-353-1600; 7, $20 (also Oct. 28 at Music Hall of Williamsburg)
Suddenly reconsidering his word choice, the polite Swedish singer-songwriter best known for singing of a world that revolves around late-night missed trams and late-year misunderstandings, tries to explain himself more clearly.
“I don’t know if ‘homeless’ is actually the right word for it,” he elaborates. “Perhaps I’m more of a couch-surfer.”
On the phone from Bloomington, Ind.—the city where indie label Secretly Canadian, which has just released his new full length album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, is located—Lekman reports that, having completed the record, he has left what he calls “officially the worst apartment in Gothenburg” for a few months of shows on the road.
“There was a specific sound every time I recorded in my flat,” he explains of his former basement-level residence in the Swedish city’s neighborhood of Kortedala. “I wanted to make a record that was inspired by the world. When I looked at the window, all I could see was a brick wall.”
Much as Lekman longed for a different environment to homebrew his latest melancholy pop opus, Kortedala, which became his farewell album to the neighborhood, did not suffer. The album’s 12 tracks are a rich exploration into Lekman’s songs: a candid, sometimes comic and often lonely place where liberally and craftily sampled instruments decorate his compositions, in his words, “like ornaments on a Christmas tree.”
The album’s emotional centerpiece may be “Your Arms Around Me,” which offers both sad and hilarious moments in the narrator’s trip to the emergency room (from his wild post-injury passed-out dreams to his awakening next to a disinterested lover on a “dirty hospital couch”).
The recording’s doleful strings, lush harp runs and plucky piano surround Lekman’s voice as he shifts from his trademark sad sack baritone to an affable falsetto. It’s but one in a dozen triumphs, from moments of orchestral bombast on “And I Remember Every Kiss” to the youthful reminiscing of “It Was A Strange Time In My Life,” that grace the album.
Kortedala, in fact, was such a success in Sweden that it climbed to the top of the charts the week it was released. Lekman, ever humble, doesn’t let it inflate his ego. “No one buys records in Sweden anymore,” he explains. “I think it means I sold a thousand copies or something.”
Nor does it create any distance in Lekman’s mind between performer and audience. Each night after the singer finishes playing with his nine-piece touring band, he’s having a friend do a low-key post-set, so as to have an opportunity to let those in attendance talk not just to him but to each other as well.
“I want people to stick around. I like talking to people and hanging out,” he says. “I want to make them miss the last bus home.”
It seems that, at least when Lekman is in town, everyone can afford to be homeless for just a little while.
Oct. 27, Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.), 212-353-1600; 7, $20 (also Oct. 28 at Music Hall of Williamsburg)
