Jens Lekman's generous new album

To readers of Paste, Kortedala, a residential neighborhood in Gothenburg, Sweden, is already well known as a prime example of Sweden’s socially minded housing developments of the 1950s. But Kortedala is more than a seminal piece of urban planning, and Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman will prove it to you.

It makes sense that Lekman would name his third album Night Falls Over Kortedala, since his beautifully arranged music has much in common with the clean, Nordic lines of postwar Swedish architecture. Also, his studio, Kortedala Beauty Center, is located there.

Kortedala will be released on Secretly Canadian on October 9 in either CD or vinyl formats, and direct mail order purchases through the record label’s website will receive a “free digital download coupon,” which can be redeemed for a full album download. If that’s not enough, you can download an mp3 of the first single, “Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo,” right here. If that generosity does not remind you of Swedish public housing, then you have not been paying attention.

Night Falls Over Kortedala’s tracklist:

And I Remember Every Kiss
Sipping On the Sweet Nectar
The Opposite of Hallelujah
A Postcard to Nina
Into Eternity
I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You
If I Could Cry (it would feel like this)
Your Arms Around Me
Shirin
It Was a Strange Time in My Life
Kanske Är Jag Kär i Dig
Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo