Skip to main content

Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

(originally published by The Student)

     In 2008 a fresh-faced Lykke Li Zachrisson told the Guardian why she no longer want to be a dancer- “I want to be on stage and travel the world and live passionately and have love affairs and get drunk.” Since debut Youth Novels, Lykke Li has toured the world, ticking boxes one and two, and with this album sings through the other three.
     The new album Wounded Rhymes takes its name from a line in one of the last and most mellow songs on the album- Sadness is a Blessing. Here she uses melodies and lyrics reminiscent of a 60s girl-band, with lines like “Sadness is my boyfriend / Oh, Sadness, I'm your girl”. An otherwise decent song is weakened by Li's voice, which here sounds sickly-sweet rather than the more sinister melodies heard elsewhere.
     First track Youth Knows No Pain opens with a darkly energetic style which introduces us to the heavy, tribal-sounding drums that dominate the album. But at times this backbeat seems all too obvious, and it's only the folky Unrequited Love in which it doesn't make an appearance- by which time it won't be missed. Instead it's replaced by a lower register for the singer and footstep sounds as a kind of relief.
     The first two singles from the album, Get Some and I Follow Rivers, are obsessive in sentiment and explicit in lyric. The first sees Li announcing “I'm your prostitute / You're gonna get some”, and the second is best with its video, showing a black-shrouded figure chasing a man across a snowy plain.
     Mixing earthy bongos with ethereal synthesisers, the 24-year-old Swede provides a well-rounded sound paired with a kind of Native-American Psychadelia which would be just as at home in a club as on the freezing streets of Ystad.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing CV

Let's talk:   jenni.ajderian@gmail.com Mild-mannered professional Linguist by day, crime-fighting writer and editor by night. Currently protecting the mean streets of Dublin from bad content. "She's one of the good ones" -  FringePig "Best. Review. Ever." -  @ObjectiveTalent "This interview has won #edfringe" -  @FredRAlexander "I think this is the nicest review I've ever received." -  @DouglasSits "Do you give lessons? Jus askin..." -  @RockyFlintstone FedEx Digital Infinite Beta blog  - 2017 I worked with FedEx Digital as a Technical Copywriter (more info on my  LinkedIn Profile ) and produced sassy content for their Infinite Beta blog. The tone here is informal and personable, the aim being to show some personality and attract future team members to the company. How to explain your job title Automated content checkers   Technology predictions for 2018  (I wasn't too far off) 3di Technical Commu...

Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible...      It was hard.      The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter.      The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

Vancouver, British Columbia

Boogie Bear and I thoroughly enjoyed our two days in Vancouver.      The parents of Fiona, my last WWOOFing host, live in North Vancouver and are absolutely wonderful. They've opened their doors to me for my little sejour in Vancouver- not only that, but after picking me up from the Seabus station I was hailed as elegant and offered a glass of wine. Following a six-hour Greyhound bus ride and the customary short hike with the 80-litre backpack, this was more than welcome.      This morning was spent walking through the Capilano Canyon with the dogs, before I jumped back on the Seabus and into the big city of Vancouver. From thousand-year-old trees to skyscrapers, I wandered a little bemusedly through city streets and the glittering Downtown all spruced up for the Olympics. This is all only a short walk from Gastown, the infamous Amsterdam Café, Chinatown and finally the eastern edges and the highway. Staying on a single road there is a ta...