It’s been eleven years since Lykke Li promised to follow us. And really – she’s still there! But let’s start earlier. Actually, the musician first caught the eye in 2008, when she explained in “Little Bit” that she was too proud to love her, but she liked us. Therefore, we should please take the initiative. But we were very shy ourselves, so we didn’t do anything until 2011 came along. In 2011 she released “I Follow Rivers”, which mutated into an international hit in a remix by The Magician. And since then, yes we had doubts, but if you turn around, Lykke Li has stayed. Sometimes you’re happy. Sometimes you wonder why this lunatic doesn’t stop chasing us after all these years and just admits that she likes us. But somehow you’re glad to have them with you.
Their new album is called “EYEYE” (Play It Again Sam/Rough Trade). It’s her fifth studio album and she wanted to do something completely different, so the album was recorded without click tracks, without headphones and without digital instruments. In this respect everything sounds reduced, lo fi and a little trashy. As if the backing track was playing loudly in the background, and then her voice got even louder and appropriately effect-packed over it. In terms of songwriting and mood, Lykke Li lands somewhere along the lines of Lana del Rey’s “Blue Banisters,” except here the Banisters are tin cans – and there’s quite a lot of reverb on everything.
The album is 33 minutes and 33 seconds long, which is a near-perfect album length. It’s also refreshing in that musicians always tell you not to listen to their music through laptop speakers, because only expensive headphones or an extremely good system can capture every nuance of their masterpiece. Lykke Li goes the opposite way. She doesn’t even use headphones herself. You have to trust yourself first.
Does anyone remember “What should we do, Batman?” from meat lego? The song is from 1994, so it’s almost 30 years old, but it fits the current situation like a glove… that’s actually a pretty brutal picture when you think about it. Unnecessarily brutal in such enlightened times. Let’s say: The song fits the current situation like strawberry cream on a cupcake. The lyrics go like this: “What should we do, Batman? / The economy is doing badly, Batman (…) The Muslims want to get at us, Batman / The Bundeswehr is at a loss, Batman / The world is bad, Batman / Pensions cost money, Batman / The papers lie, Batman.” In 1994 nobody suspected that Robert Pattinson would be our only hope in 2022 as a depressed Batman.
The band The man has now given a slightly delayed answer to the Fleischlego song on her new album – it’s called “Always the one who asks”. Except that Der Mann make more experimental, intellectual Deutschrock, which is why they are a bit less in the face than Fleischlego. They’re also far more considerate than Lykke Li. Instead of just following someone around without being asked, at the beginning of the new album “Top” (Staatsakt/H’Art) they ask their listeners if they’re ready for a comeback. This is how consensus works! They themselves admit that their guitars come from the crypt (the crypt of the Hamburg school?), but they occasionally bang on pots for that. Sometimes they are even subversive, for example when they write: “We sing a song against the state / we get money from the state for that.” You have to trust yourself first.
Even more daring: quinquis. Musician Émilie Tiersen is actually known as Tiny Feet. Now she is releasing the album “Seim” (Mute/Rough Trade) as Quinquis, on which she sings exclusively in Breton. In other words, you never really know what it’s about when you’re listening. Clear advantage. Wouldn’t it be nice if all pop music was exclusively in Breton? In addition, trembling synths, buzzing electronics, warm reverberation on the few scattered guitar moments. It’s all so finely arranged and composed in such a variety of ways that you definitely don’t want to hear it on laptop speakers. You could miss something. The songs sound as if they continue to grow beneath the surface of the sound. And Tiersen’s voice sometimes floats above, sometimes below the sounds, dances around them, settles briefly and then lifts off again. What do you think she’s saying? It may be that she comfortingly tells us that although the robots have taken over the world, they are actually very nice and there is nothing to worry about. Sleep, humanity, sleep. Everything is finally fine now.