21 November 2008 :: Fortunately, Buckethead.

:: Record Review

Jens Lekman

Night Falls Over Kortedala
(Secretly Canadian; 2007)

Rating: 50%
Combined Rating: 62%

I guess -- if you'll let me start with this one tiny generalisation -- there are two types of people in this world: those who play the ukulele and those who don't.

I don't play the ukulele. I am uncalloused in this manner.

This, I'd like to think, is the crucial and overriding difference between me and Jens. It's why I don't much enjoy his music, and why he (probably) makes it so. That's gotta be it, right? I could push the ukulele divide, I could sell it. I mean, things would be more simple, less wordy, probably a whole lot more fun for me to bust out my best Mr. A and intone some shit like, "There is right, and there is wrong, and nothing -- nothing -- in between." I would hand this guy the low score I dolled out last time round, and get back to my Merzbow discography. It turns out that Merzbow have a really good discography.

Except, I can't do that. Because, the truth is, Jens Lekman is starting to confuse me in the way only a considerable talent can, and I'm finding stuff to like in the homely, snug nooks of his latest record. It's causing me to question (if not dramatically alter) a lot of the snide opinions I'd previously held about this guy and, yeah, that's annoying. Life should be so simple. I could be Mr. A.

The thing that's always bugged me about Jens -- much more than the music or even his lyrics (which are actually kind of cute) -- is the "idea." The idea behind Jens bugs me. It doesn't bug me that it's cool or hype or cellophane-popping swell; it bugs me because it's just short of fucking fantastic. It bugs me, because when I listen to Jens I want to experience that idea manifest. I want to hear, like everybody else, the brilliant composer, the rhapsodist, the troubadour with wings. I want to hear his songs carved gem-like out of cool samples from an expansive record collection, and I want that unique, inventive sonic landscape to be peppered and pried by the same sophisticated artistry that makes others drop words like "clever," "gorgeous" and "lovable" in reviews like this. I want that stuff; it sums up, very aptly, what I love about modern music.

And I really wish that Night Falls Over Kortedala would be that record, the one where Jens grows as a writer and focuses his obvious talents as an arranger into something more than blithe kitsch or faffing about. As it stands, Night Falls Over Kortedala is not that record. It is exactly what it says it is: the new Jens Lekman album and every "clever," "gorgeous" and "lovable" flugelfart of a second is dosed with that knowledge, the creeping feeling that if you didn't know it before, then you definitely know it now. Jens Lekman is a talented motherfucker and this album proves it, irrefutably and beyond all doubt. It's also really boring.

Or maybe not, goddamn it. I mean, just take one gilded listen to this thing: it's lush and beautiful and has harps and strings and is, pretty much, the first consummate collection of material that Jens has put out. It isn't just a bunch of songs. Night Falls Over Kortedala is the realisation and refinement of an aesthetic and that same sense of stylistic mastery can be palpably and intimately felt in the record's seamless blend of live instrumentation and crackled samples, its warm enveloping sound, or just in the way Jens starts off with the Walker Brothers ("And I Remember Every Kiss") before doubling up with his heart beating like Ringo ("Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo").

When that aesthetic is paired with equally-convincing songwriting, the results are, unsurprisingly, amazing: the idle table taps introducing "Postcard to Nina" perfectly capture the song's droll happiness, its lumbering bass anchoring the escalating horns before they border on the unreasonable.

More representative of the album, though, is "Shirin," the tale of a (um) hairdresser. It starts beautifully, boasting a wonderful, bittersweet melody and a breathless vocal turn from Lekman, all understated inflection and smooth-toned warmth. Then something really weird and really wrong happens: Jens switches up the rhythm, and the song bolts into a hyperkinetic double-speed that doesn't just suck out the easy charm, it completely kills the carefully crafted mood. What it doesn't do is energise the tune or make it more exciting or palatable. It's a clumsy, ill-thought non-segue with no emotional or thematic precedent. It derails the whole enterprise. It fucks up the song.

This is the problem: the songs come off as well-wrought scaffolding, sonic playhouses with no one playing, no fleshed-out apertures, no emotive or meaningful core. Just some crap that Jens can toss together and bulldoze on a whim. And I love "Postcard to Nina," or the winning strum'n'throb of "The Opposite of Hallelujah" with its march-band hooks and stabbing strings. Trouble is, the rest of the record's material lacks their melodic playfulness, their well-worked dynamism. Songs like "If I Could Cry" get stuck fumbling for effective permutations, and too often the atmosphere of an otherwise engaging song like "Shirin" is laid-waste in search of an elusive trumpcard. When melodic threads are satisfyingly resolved, the songs, more often than not, settle for a pampered middle ground: "Your Arms Around Me" never opens up. "Into Eternity" goes nowhere.

And this is the reason why I won't join in on the Hallelujah Chorus for this record's qualities: because, although there are a few individual moments where those qualities round-off and transcend any qualms anybody might have about Lekman's style, that style on its own, minus a map or even the faint corners of a box, can only elicit the slow smile of admiration, not genuine, passionate interest. Plus, he plays the fucking ukulele.

Alan Baban :: 24 September 2007 |                

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