Pages tagged “jens lekman”

Night may be falling over Kortedala, but Jens Lekman's not going to be around to see it. In the wake of his stop at SXSW (and a longer stint in the U.S.), Lekman's riding the acclaim accumulated after the October release of Night Falls Over Kortedala throughout the UK.

But first, the silver-tongued songsmith will take his sweet Swedish indie pop along as he makes his inaugural appearance at Coachella, performing the first day of the festival. He'll also stop at the ATP vs. Pitchfork throw-down in Camber Sands May 11. Jens graces the Pitchfork team, if anyone was wondering.

For a taste of what Lekman sounds like live, listen to his performance last week at NPR's Studio 4A, or watch his extended Take-Away Shows.

Oh you're so mobile, Jens:

April
25 - Indio, Calif. @ Coachella Music Festival

May
11 - Camber Sands, UK @ Pitchfork / All Tomorrows Parties
12 - Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms
13 - Newcastle, UK @ The Cluny
14 - Leeds, UK @ Woodhouse Club
15 - Glasgow, Scotland @ Oran Mor
17 - Minehead, UK @ All Tomorrows Parties
19 - Manchester, UK @ Academy 3
20 - London, UK @ Scala
21 - Birmingham, UK @ Glee Club
23 - Belfast, Ireland @ The Black Box
24 - Galway, Ireland @ Roisin Dubh
25 - Dublin, Ireland @ The Village

MP3: Jens Lekman - "Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo"

MP3: Jens Lekman - "The Opposite of Hallelujah"

Related links:
JensLekman.com
SecretlyCanadian.com
Feature: Jens Lekman: The Best Medicine

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

It's gonna be a sweet spring night on Capitol Hill "not to mention many other hills across the globe" when precocious Swedish songsmith Jens Lekman embarks upon a massive 2008 tour in support of last year's Night Falls Over Kortedala. Lekman's latest album popped up on roughly 4.3 bagillion year-end lists, including Paste's (#21) and the New York Times' (#7), and his boyish charm made enough Stereogum readers' hearts go "bum-ba-bum-ba-bum" that he claimed the top spot on the site's 2007 "Mr. Indie Rock Hottie" list.

The lengthy jaunt begins on Jan. 10 in Melbourne, Australia, where Lekman is currently staying in "a little room there in a house in the north." According to his engrossing, adorable blog, Smalltalk, he packed up and left his hometown of Gothenburg (and his former neighborhood, the titular Kortedala) for Melbourne on New Year's Day. A poor avocado slicer but ever the thoughtful gentleman, Lekman recently gave Smalltalk readers a Christmas present in the form of a dimly-lit yet awesome video of himself and Owen Pallett (a.k.a. violin virtuoso Final Fantasy) playing an impromptu version of "Your Arms Around Me" in Dublin, somewhere in an alley near Whelan's (where Lekman played a proper show earlier that night).

You can fulfill your yen for Jens inside or outside venues on both sides of the equator and the Prime Meridian, where he'll share bills with acts ranging from Spoon and Andrew Bird (on Jan. 21 at the Spunk! Records 10th anniversary party) to Of Montreal and Man Man (May 9-11 at ATP vs. Pitchfork) to a to-be-announced cadre of his Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans labelmates at South by Southwest (on March 13). Time to Priceline some plane tickets...

Non-U.S. Dates:

January
10 - Melbourne, Australia @ The Toff
15 - Sydney, Australia @ Vanguard
21 - Bangalow, Australia @ The A & I Hall

February
14 - Istanbul, Turkey @ Babylon
15 - Copenhagen, Denmark @ Vega
16 - Berlin, Germany @ Lido
18 - Turin, Italy @ El Barrio
19 - Ravenna, Italy @ Teatro Rasi
21 - St. Gallen, Switzerland @ Palace
22 - Florence, Italy @ Viper Club
23 - Munich, Germany @ Atomic Cafe
24 - Frankfurt, Germany @ Mousonturm
25 - Nijmegen, Netherlands @ Doornroosje
26 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
27 - Paris, France @ Nouveau Casino
28 - Brussels, Belgium @ AB Club
29 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix

March
01 - Cologne, Germany @ Gebeude 9
02 - Hamburg, Germany @ Molotow

May
09-11 - Rye, England @ Camber Sand Holiday Centre (ATP vs. Pitchfork)
16-18 - Minehead, England @ Butlin's Holiday Centre (Explosions in the Sky ATP)

U.S. Dates:

March
13 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk (Secretly Canadian SXSW showcase)
14 - Dallas, TX @ Granada
21 - Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theater
22 - San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo's 365 Club
23 - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
24 - Portland, OR @ Berbati's Pan
25 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room
29 - Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theater
30 - Madison, WI @ Music Hall
31 - Chicago, IL @ Logan Square

April
01 - Columbus, OH @ Wexner Center for the Arts
02 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat
04 - Boston, MA @ Paradise
05 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall

Related links::
JensLekman.com
Paste: Jens Lekman - The Best Medicine
YouTube: Jens Lekman and Owen Pallett perform "Your Arms Around Me" in Dublin

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

With Jens Lekman singing morose lines like, “I will never kiss anyone / who doesn’t burn me like the sun,” you might think he’s a humorless, self-mutilating drama queen. But that’s not exactly what this Swedish singer/songwriter is going for. "I felt like when I started writing songs," explains Lekman, "and I tried to be funny, people started crying. And when I tried to be serious, people just laughed. I felt like I was comically retarded or something."

Song titles like “I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You” and “If I Could Cry (It Would Feel Like This)” make Lekman seem like an alumnus of Morrissey’s School of Morbidity in Song. And yet, in “A Postcard to Nina,” Lekman hilariously details an awkward dinner with a lesbian friend and her father, during which Lekman plays the part of her boyfriend. Much more than mere tragicomedy, Lekman’s gorgeous new album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, is sheer brilliance—easily one of the year’s finest. Throughout its dozen songs—which were plucked from a pile of hundreds by Lekman’s friends—is a liberal mix of romanticism (“Your Arms Around Me”), sorrow (“I’m Leaving You...”) and touching humor (“Nina”). Lekman sings like a lounge act, and his plush musical backdrop is just a little kitschy, incorporating doo-wop harmonies, pastoral melodies and even symphonic grandeur.

Somewhere along this meticulously composed path to Kortedala, Lekman realized that the tunes and laughs were a therapy of sorts. “I used to write really shitty, gloomy songs about how everything sucked,” he says, “but I realized that everything sucked because I wrote those songs. My music controlled me much more than I controlled my music."

With things now under control and a career-defining album on record-store shelves, perhaps Lekman can focus more on the lighter aspects of life. And if he happens to prove that pop music can be funny and beautiful at the same time, so be it.

“I don’t understand why a lot of music is so entirely serious,” he says. “I always think of music as dialogue in some way. I don’t have any friends who don’t use humor every day. I kind of like having the characters [in the songs] come alive. And that dialogue really comes alive if there’s comedy in it.”

Oh I still remember "Black Cab" with that Lekman guy.
Could that have been back in the sweet autumn of 2005?

Yes, maybe it only seems like a long while since we last heard from Swedish pimp/songwriter Jens Lekman. But with the Oct. 9 release of his upcoming Night Falls Over Kortedala creeping ever closer, the wait is soon to end. Paste has already noted why Lekman lovers would do well to pre-order the album, but we also want to keep fans abreast with the man's travel itinerary. Lekman added a slew of UK dates with Josh Rouse earlier this month, but we're pleased to report another four dates at American venues. Here's the complete set of American and UK engagements, with the newly announced shows in italics:

October
23 - Bloomington, Ind. @ Jake's *
25 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat *
26 - Philadelphia, Penn. @ First Unitarian Church *
27 - New York, N.Y. @ Webster Hall *
29 - Boston, Mass. @ Paradise *

November
1 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Beachland Ballroom *
2 - Chicago, Ill. @ Logan Square Auditorium **
3 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ Triple Rock Social Club **
6 - Seattle, Wash. @ Nectar *
7 - Portland, Ore. @ Someday Lounge *
9 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Bimbo's 365 Club *
10 - West Hollywood, Calif. @ Troubadour *
13 - Dallas, Texas @ Granada
14 - Austin, Texas @ Parish
15 - Tallahassee, Fla. @ Club Downunder
16 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Drunken Unicorn
27 - Manchester, UK @ Sacred Trinity Church
28 - Leeds, UK @ Holy Trinity Church
29 - Sheffield, UK @ The Plug ***
30 - Manchester, UK @ Academy 2 ***

December
1 - Glasgow, UK @ QMU ***
3 - Gateshead, UK @ The Sage 2 ***
4 - Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms ***
5 - Bristol, UK @ Academy ***
7 - Oxford, UK @ Academy ***
8 - Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2 ***
9 - London, UK @ Shepherds Bush Empire ***
11 - London, UK @ The Luminaire
12 - Dublin, Ireland @ Whelan's

* w/ Viktor Sjoberg
** w/ Viktor Sjoberg, Dave Fischoff
*** w/ Josh Rouse

Also worth checking out - Stereogum has Lekman's new music video for his sumptuous single "Sipping on Sweet Nectar." Apparently, the guy's got a piloting license, too. Is there anything Jens can't conquer?

Related Links:
Paste: Jens Lekman - Good Things, Small Packages
JensLekman.com
Jens Lekman - "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo" mp3

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

As previously and enthusiastically reported, a direct-mail order of Swedish pop star Jens Lekman’s spectacular new LP on vinyl gets one a “free digital download coupon,” redeemable for an album’s worth of material (a blessing for all who collect records yet can’t make room in the Volvo for a phonograph). Now, pre-orders of the upcoming full-length, titled Night Falls on Kortedala, open wide the digital e-gates to undetermined bonus material, which Lekman promises “won’t be horseshit.” Night Falls comes out October 9 on Secretly Canadian, so you have before then to get hooked up, as it were, with the extra bits.

Get there early for Lekman’s tour dates this fall, as his primary supporting act (a.k.a. Lekman and band member Viktor Per Sjoberg doing a DJ set) go on second. Or maybe, in this case, stay on while everyone else wanders off.

The dates:

October
23 - Bloomington, Ind. @ Jake's
25 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat
26 - Philadelphia, Penn. @ First Unitarian Church
27 - New York, N.Y. @ Webster Hall
29 - Boston, Mass. @ Paradise

November
1 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Beachland Ballroom
2 - Chicago, Ill. @ Logan Square Auditorium
3 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ Triple Rock Social Club
6 - Seattle, Wash. @ Nectar
7 - Portland, Ore. @ Someday Lounge
9 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Bimbo's 365 Club
10 - West Hollywood, Calif. @ Troubadour

Related links:
JensLekman.com
SecretlyCanadian.com
Paste: Jens Lekman's generous new album

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com