Satanosphere, the Archives || The Best Album of 2007

Night Falls Over Kortedala
Jens Lekman
(Secretly Canadian, 2007)

The greatest thing about indie music is the way Jens Lekman pronounces the word "father."

He's Swedish, see. Although he seems very fluent in the English language, the Swedes don't have too many instances of the "th" combination in their language. The closest thing is the hard "d" sound, which they got plenty of. So Jens Lekman pronounces it like this: "fodder."

Swedish pop stars usually sing their songs in English, and more than any other non-English dialect, Scandinavians are great at writing lyrics that might sound odd to American or British listeners, but that open up new concepts for the listener. Phrases that sound like they were written by a gifted junior high schooler to define an exact object that we all can relate to, we've just never heard it put quite that way. Lines like "I put my hand on some metal object." Or "Sipping on the sweet nectar of your memories," or "I picked up a shell to illustrate my homelessness, but a crab crawled out of it, making it useless." Or "The Opposite of Hallelujah."

The effect is something like naivete, or innocence, or encountering feelings anew, making sure each thrill and heartbreak gets its notice, is entered into the catalogue. It's a lot like Jonathan Richman. And then you get something you don't often brush up against in the jaded, sometimes contrived indie world: joy. Not undeserved joy, not joy borne out of your recognition of irony. Rather, the joy of noticing everything in the world, being able to experience it. Genuine laughter, articulated sympathy, seeing the countryside for the first time, getting too drunk at a party and hailing a disreputable cab driver to take you home and making it back alive.

Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala was the only album I heard this year - the only one - where I dropped my jaw the first time I heard it. I couldn't believe what thoughts, what exact details I was hearing, and how emotionally satisfying they were. It is leaps and bounds above Lekman's previous works. Which are all pretty great.

Kortedala was like the most effective, most popular Steven Spielberg movie: You feel you should discredit it for its mere existence, but when you give yourself over to it, when you let yourself experience it, you see how brilliantly it's put together, and how incredibly smart someone has to be to create such an emotional piece. And how brave it's become to put your heart on your sleeve. And somehow not looking like a chump. If only Dan Fogelberg had been raised in the bitter Nordic cold. Then "Longer" would have contained jokes. That ridiculous line about forest primeval would have been a scream.

Like Spielberg, Lekman is unashamed to use the most populist, sentimental means - mainly through samples -- of promoting his point. And he goes all out. "And I Remember Every Kiss" opens the album with a grandeur that could only be called Hammersteinian. I dare you not to think of Maria Von Trapp singing to the Austrian countryside, chilling Hitler out of his freak basement. The swelling orchestra threatens to consume Lekman, while he takes the brave tack of honoring his past loves. But then comes the "language" moment: Apropos of almost nothing, Lekman suddenly turns and declares how hard it is to retain sentiment for someone of his age: "Things get more complicated when you're older/Before you know it you are somebody's soldier/You get a gun and you name it after a girlfriend" (the latter syllable of "girlfriend" held and sustained as the orchestra ramps up to the chorus). That's the best bad half-verse of the year, which means it's not bad at all. Twenty years later, you appreciate what it conveyed, just like E.T.

"Sipping on the Sweet Water" sounds like Jack Jones' theme to The Love Boat. The rhythms and patterns are identical. (And why is it called "Sipping on the Sweet Water" when Lekman actually sings "Sipping on the Sweet Nectar"?) At this point it should be clear that Lekman's committed his all to his blueprint - he's borrowing heavily from the most trite, produced 70s pop you can imagine, and he will refract its sentiments just so.

But I dare you to find the irony in Jens Lekman. Well - the calculated irony. Lekman believes in what he's singing about, and that it probably has the most intangible connection with the most artificial era of rock music. He sings about exactly what they sang about in the original songs. But it doesn't seem dishonest; it doesn't feel at all like a joke. It just seems like what would have worked. Instead of causing a smug, raised eyebrow, it's euphoric.

The tandem of "And I Remember" and "Sweet Water" work exactly as "Summer's Cauldron" and "Grass" did on XTC's Skylarking: They set the opening moments, the tone, and the aesthetics of all the songs that follow. Both sets are among the best-ever album-opening pairs of songs, because in theory they could restate the whole purpose of the album. And though the songs that follow either support or feed back on those reference points, they're more than good enough taken separately.

The subsequent songs are heavy on the narrative, rather than the rough purpose statements the first two serve to be. They are dramatic examples of the sum-greater-than-parts theory, and they usually succeed because of what Lekman doesn't say - what small details he chooses to highlight. He avoids taking the most obvious route out of a moment.

"The Opposite of Hallelujah" (where the line about the crab comes from) is an explanation about how the singer can't explain to a girl how unhappily he's feeling, while they're both on the beach, grabbing for mental dictionaries in front of the surf. For me the most telling part of the song is the character of the girl - it's not a lover or a prospective girlfriend. It's Lekman's sister. It's poignant to find that while other bands are singing (not without merit) about miscommunications between lovers, Lekman is trying to explain it to family. That choice right there makes the song more potent; there's no way you could interpret it as a con job to get a girl.

"Shirin" is about how skillfully Lekman's hairdresser cuts his locks, and how soft her hands are. Then he sneaks in remarks about the Iraqi war and the government. But it's not quite the protest you'd expect; it's not how lesser minds would have presented the material. Shirin and her family are refugees from Iraq, and they're a little nervous what the Swedish tax authorities would think about running a business out of her home. "I won't tell anyone!" Jens sings. Probably because she's a great hairdresser. "Your Arms Around Me" is a straightforward expression of love and reassuring contact -- in the context of a man being consoled by his lover in the emergency room after he's decapitated his index finger while cutting an avocado. ("What's broken can always be fixed," she tells him, "what's fixed will always be broken.")

But Kortedala's most stunning turn of comical narrative, and one of my favorite songs of the year, is "A Postcard to Nina." This was the number that produced the jaw-drop on the freeway while I heard it, because I couldn't believe somebody was writing such a great song about such a complicated situation. The singer agrees to meet his friend's family (specifically her "fodder") posing as her boyfriend. Not because he harbors romantic affection for her, not because he thinks it's going to turn into something it won't. No. The reason he poses as Nina's boyfriend is to obscure the chance that her family will find out Nina's a lesbian. "Your father is a sweet old man/But it's hard for him to understand/That you want to love a woman." At a dinner with Nina and her dad, Lekman fumbles and frustrates himself when he inadvertently gives the game away. And at the end, Lekman tries to reconcile the whole affair with Nina in these words, which frankly blew me out of my mind: "I'm sending this postcard just to say/Don't let anyone stand in your way/Yours truly, Jens Lekman." The coda has Lekman singing, in great, grand resolution, "Don't let anyone stand in your way!"

What is amazing about "A Postcard to Nina" is how much empathy Lekman has for every single character he sings about. The father, who's not really a homophobe (I think), but just can't figure out homosexuality. He just simply wouldn't "understand." And especially the ending exhortation to Nina - screw what people might think, or what mental blocks you might feel are in your path. Don't let anyone impose on your will to love whoever you love. This is a win-win. Everybody sings songs about this kind of subject, but not many people back it up with examples. They skip right to the slogan. Lekman actually takes the time and builds a case.

"Nina" moves like a constant surprise. The revelation of details, the sudden appearance and quick exit of a doo-wop chorus, the unexpectedly fast singing Lekman uses to reveal his nervousness at playing his role. I've given away almost everything that's beautiful about this song, but I suspect upon hearing it you won't think I've spoiled anything.

Every song on Kortedala contains some sort of punched-out flourish, something added on top of the song that could either capsize the flow or add a new dimension. It is always the latter. Take "If I Could Cry, It Would Feel Like This." That's the only lyric in the song. It's built around the drum intro to David Bowie's "Young Americans," and again sounds like it could double as the theme to an Aaron Spelling show. Lekman's not just risking pathos here. He's practically risking crying all over you. This is a front-loaded effort for sympathy, but he's not going to be half-assed about it. As it is, he seems to remain calm. Then, in the chorus, for no apparent reason, he shoves in multi-layered, obviously multi-tracked handclaps, almost as heavy as the ones in "We Will Rock You."

Now, you may not think like this, or maybe you do, but every time I get to that part I ask myself: What could Lekman have been thinking when he made that decision? Did he put such aggressive (and grimily populist) rhythm to throw off the pathos? Did he do it to make the feeling sound more communal, shared with a mass of others? Or, as is very likely the case, did it just sound good?

The key to Lekman's art is that every tool he uses stands the risk of calling attention to itself, but somehow it doesn't. Like Beck did with his hip-hop-esque albums, Lekman uses elements that other musicians are just not likely to use because they'd turn the song into a novelty piece. But again, Beck used his samples and Dadaist word games in an ironic way. It works, but it could also create distance in the listener. Lekman sounds like he's trying to use everything to pull the listener in. And so the mundane life of a well-traveled Swedish romantic becomes something fascinating, almost like a life you'd rather have.

It's all gonna get back to that irony thing. Don't misunderstand me: I love irony. It's vital to maintain day-to-day survival. It's simply delusional to refuse to recognize irony when it occurs. But you can overload on it. Although I have no doubt in the world Jens Lekman is aware of the irony fans will take from his work, as I'm sure Jonathan Richman does, he doesn't shoot for it, or crave its usual results.

Lekman will never worry about looking uncool; it just won't come up for him. Therefore he'll always be cool in a way. I got no problem with The Killers, but you tell me Brandon Flowers doesn't invest a lot of his capital, i.e. irony, into maintaining cool distance. That's how 99% of all musicians are. Even the ones that seem like they aren't. Even They Might Be Giants does it sometimes, especially now that nerds rule the world.

Jens Lekman may mutate into that kind of musician someday - you never know how these things turn out - but so far, he hasn't. And I think right now, I kind of need to see that from someone.

At the end of 2006 I wound up splitting my vote for best album of the year. I couldn't decide whether I'd vote for sage, minimalist optimism (Lindsey Buckingham's Under The Skin) or relentless, unspeakable horror (Scott Walker's The Drift). But the decision in 2007 was much simpler. It was all based on adherence to a concept, and the understated pleasure of finding experiences and friends to give your life more definition as the future faces you. Night Falls Over Kortedala has a surefire sonic game plan, but not an ounce of pretension. Jens Lekman honors youthful disclosure with all its insecurities and inconsistencies. He zeroes in on the fact that the graph of a life is a wonderful thing to construct, and that no experience is too insignificant to mean something. But Lekman's not so arrogant that he knows what that meaning is yet. He just takes the ride and adores the view. It'll add up later.

Word to your fodder.