Jens Lekman HHV Records 6 Items

"All my friends were playing in these bass-guitar-drum bands," speaks Jens Lekman, casting his mind back over twenty years to his first rudimentary experiments with sampling using his father's old cassette recorder, and an instinct to create music that would set him far apart from his Swedish pop peers. "I'm going to sound like Scott Walker. But I'm going to do it in my bedroom." Works of sweeping, maximalist, orchestral wonder sung in a sumptuous tenor, weaving lifts from obscure fleamarket vinyl records with by turns burningly romantic and mordantly funny true-life tales from the sleepy-shadowy suburbs of Gothenburg - Lekman's early songs come from a different time, a different place. An era when the internet was young, limitless and disruptive, sample culture was turning music inside out, and anything felt possible. After initially finding an audience through peer-to-peer file sharing sites, Lekman signed to Secretly Canadian Records in 2003, and went on to release a slew of cherished material, including three cult limited-edition EPs - Maple Leaves, Rocky Dennis and Julie - later collected on the 2005 compilation album Oh You're So Silent Jens. His DIY fantasias found their fullest and most celebrated form in 2007 on his second album proper, the exquisite Night Falls Over Kortedala - Lekman's self-professed "dream record". It went to number one in Sweden and was later hailed as one of the 200 best albums of the 2000s by Pitchfork, as well as one of the top 100 albums of the 21st century so far by The Guardian. Now, like Oh You're So Silent Jens, it no longer exists in its original form. Oh You're So Silent Jens enigmatically disappeared in 2011; Night Falls Over Kortedala followed suit in early 2022. Lekman's impulse for giving old music fresh life and context has led him to remake the records under new names, each delicately positioned in dialogue with the past - the same albums, just different. The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom and The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom are a pair of lovingly and painstakingly assembled reduxes each keeping the same core tracklisting, spirit and source material as the originals, but blending brand new versions of some tracks, in part or in whole, together with many tracks left largely as they were. Both records are fleshed out with rare, previously unreleased, and even previously unfinished old songs, as well as other contemporaneous material such as cassette diaries. On The Cherry Trees, two of Lekman's best-loved early breakout singles are completely reimagined - `Maple Leaves' as a tender ballad burnished with warm strings; tragi-comic illegal taxi ride to oblivion `Black Cab' in two different versions, a handsome full band pop song and a gentle acoustic lullaby. The Linden Trees repackages all the true-life tales, magic, and mystery of Night Falls for a new age, yet in wholly familiar form, from the joyous `The Opposite of Hallelujah' to hilariously uplifting missive `A Postcard to Nina' and open-hearted love-song `Your Arms Around Me'. Taken together, the new albums form a sort of belated farewell to Lekman's formative days as a bedroom Scott Walker, panning for sample gold in stacks of vintage vinyl. Albeit not a farewell to the original albums themselves, which will live on in fans' record collections, and perhaps illicit corners of the internet. Spread to the wind. "I feel like these new records are like portals that can lead you to the old records if you want," Lekman reflects. "I think that they can lead you to another time and a place, where you could work with music in a different way."

"All my friends were playing in these bass-guitar-drum bands," speaks Jens Lekman, casting his mind back over twenty years to his first rudimentary experiments with sampling using his father's old cassette recorder, and an instinct to create music that would set him far apart from his Swedish pop peers. "I'm going to sound like Scott Walker. But I'm going to do it in my bedroom." Works of sweeping, maximalist, orchestral wonder sung in a sumptuous tenor, weaving lifts from obscure fleamarket vinyl records with by turns burningly romantic and mordantly funny true-life tales from the sleepy-shadowy suburbs of Gothenburg - Lekman's early songs come from a different time, a different place. An era when the internet was young, limitless and disruptive, sample culture was turning music inside out, and anything felt possible. After initially finding an audience through peer-to-peer file sharing sites, Lekman signed to Secretly Canadian Records in 2003, and went on to release a slew of cherished material, including three cult limited-edition EPs - Maple Leaves, Rocky Dennis and Julie - later collected on the 2005 compilation album Oh You're So Silent Jens. His DIY fantasias found their fullest and most celebrated form in 2007 on his second album proper, the exquisite Night Falls Over Kortedala - Lekman's self-professed "dream record". It went to number one in Sweden and was later hailed as one of the 200 best albums of the 2000s by Pitchfork, as well as one of the top 100 albums of the 21st century so far by The Guardian. Now, like Oh You're So Silent Jens, it no longer exists in its original form. Oh You're So Silent Jens enigmatically disappeared in 2011; Night Falls Over Kortedala followed suit in early 2022. Lekman's impulse for giving old music fresh life and context has led him to remake the records under new names, each delicately positioned in dialogue with the past - the same albums, just different. The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom and The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom are a pair of lovingly and painstakingly assembled reduxes each keeping the same core tracklisting, spirit and source material as the originals, but blending brand new versions of some tracks, in part or in whole, together with many tracks left largely as they were. Both records are fleshed out with rare, previously unreleased, and even previously unfinished old songs, as well as other contemporaneous material such as cassette diaries. On The Cherry Trees, two of Lekman's best-loved early breakout singles are completely reimagined - `Maple Leaves' as a tender ballad burnished with warm strings; tragi-comic illegal taxi ride to oblivion `Black Cab' in two different versions, a handsome full band pop song and a gentle acoustic lullaby. The Linden Trees repackages all the true-life tales, magic, and mystery of Night Falls for a new age, yet in wholly familiar form, from the joyous `The Opposite of Hallelujah' to hilariously uplifting missive `A Postcard to Nina' and open-hearted love-song `Your Arms Around Me'. Taken together, the new albums form a sort of belated farewell to Lekman's formative days as a bedroom Scott Walker, panning for sample gold in stacks of vintage vinyl. Albeit not a farewell to the original albums themselves, which will live on in fans' record collections, and perhaps illicit corners of the internet. Spread to the wind. "I feel like these new records are like portals that can lead you to the old records if you want," Lekman reflects. "I think that they can lead you to another time and a place, where you could work with music in a different way."

"All my friends were playing in these bass-guitar-drum bands," speaks Jens Lekman, casting his mind back over twenty years to his first rudimentary experiments with sampling using his father's old cassette recorder, and an instinct to create music that would set him far apart from his Swedish pop peers. "I'm going to sound like Scott Walker. But I'm going to do it in my bedroom." Works of sweeping, maximalist, orchestral wonder sung in a sumptuous tenor, weaving lifts from obscure fleamarket vinyl records with by turns burningly romantic and mordantly funny true-life tales from the sleepy-shadowy suburbs of Gothenburg - Lekman's early songs come from a different time, a different place. An era when the internet was young, limitless and disruptive, sample culture was turning music inside out, and anything felt possible. After initially finding an audience through peer-to-peer file sharing sites, Lekman signed to Secretly Canadian Records in 2003, and went on to release a slew of cherished material, including three cult limited-edition EPs - Maple Leaves, Rocky Dennis and Julie - later collected on the 2005 compilation album Oh You're So Silent Jens. His DIY fantasias found their fullest and most celebrated form in 2007 on his second album proper, the exquisite Night Falls Over Kortedala - Lekman's self-professed "dream record". It went to number one in Sweden and was later hailed as one of the 200 best albums of the 2000s by Pitchfork, as well as one of the top 100 albums of the 21st century so far by The Guardian. Now, like Oh You're So Silent Jens, it no longer exists in its original form. Oh You're So Silent Jens enigmatically disappeared in 2011; Night Falls Over Kortedala followed suit in early 2022. Lekman's impulse for giving old music fresh life and context has led him to remake the records under new names, each delicately positioned in dialogue with the past - the same albums, just different. The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom and The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom are a pair of lovingly and painstakingly assembled reduxes each keeping the same core tracklisting, spirit and source material as the originals, but blending brand new versions of some tracks, in part or in whole, together with many tracks left largely as they were. Both records are fleshed out with rare, previously unreleased, and even previously unfinished old songs, as well as other contemporaneous material such as cassette diaries. On The Cherry Trees, two of Lekman's best-loved early breakout singles are completely reimagined - `Maple Leaves' as a tender ballad burnished with warm strings; tragi-comic illegal taxi ride to oblivion `Black Cab' in two different versions, a handsome full band pop song and a gentle acoustic lullaby. The Linden Trees repackages all the true-life tales, magic, and mystery of Night Falls for a new age, yet in wholly familiar form, from the joyous `The Opposite of Hallelujah' to hilariously uplifting missive `A Postcard to Nina' and open-hearted love-song `Your Arms Around Me'. Taken together, the new albums form a sort of belated farewell to Lekman's formative days as a bedroom Scott Walker, panning for sample gold in stacks of vintage vinyl. Albeit not a farewell to the original albums themselves, which will live on in fans' record collections, and perhaps illicit corners of the internet. Spread to the wind. "I feel like these new records are like portals that can lead you to the old records if you want," Lekman reflects. "I think that they can lead you to another time and a place, where you could work with music in a different way."

*Secretly Canadian’s 25th Anniversary limited edition color vinyl with exclusive anniversary cover art + obi*

*Includes a 12×12 print and essay celebrating the artist and album, exclusively for direct orders*

Jens Lekman’s songs are each so different stylistically, each a classic in its own way. He employs each of the following as central features in his songs: horn sections, string sections, a capella singing, steel drums, piano balladry, and mandolin. Lekman is a young pop crooner from Sweden. Eyes bright, heart wide open, he’s become an overnight sensation with his home recorded magic and fantastic lyrics. It’s hard to believe that he is only 23 here. He could as well be playing Las Vegas. His timeless elegance makes the big, beautiful suburban pop songs sound like they’re already classics. With an angelic voice and golden ears he seems to be drinking from the same hard waters as the Carpenters, Harry Nilsson, the Magnetic Fields, Smog, the Modern Lovers and Belle & Sebastian.

In the symbology of Lekman's songbook, motion is a means to stave off insanity or succumb to it and the songs on the An Argument With Myself EP deal with many types of movement, bothbig and small, from why he moved to Melbourne to the societal change/movement in his old hometown of Gothenburg to simple map directions. The opening song and title track begins with this excellent Jens archetype, recounting an inner battle while walking home through the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. While on its face, "Waiting For Kirsten" seems to trace an ultimately futile odyssey to track downKirsten Dunst while she films in Gothenburg, its really an attempt to work out the complex relationship one has with one's hometown. The comfort and disappoint of what's changed, andwhat seems to never change. Alternately, the horn driven "New Directions" brings a slightly manic roadmap of directions to any place but here and any time but now. The songs are witty,literal, and impeccably location-specific, and they're all heading somewhere as a means to either go crazy or keep from doing so. With more fractured textures that combine horns, flutes, string swells and arpeggiated guitars, the opening of the EP finds Jens in constant state of transition, musically, as well. However, as "An Argument With Myself" comes to a close the arrangements get looser, more reggae-tinged and relaxed, like a music box winding down. For a moment, the motion almost stops. For now.

Call it a curse. Jens Lekman's is a world populated by an endless stream of women. But not just any sort of women. No, these are the sort of women that inspire the most joyous of heartbreak in your mild-mannered crooner. There he is: hair mussed & glasses off-kilter, sitting in the corner of the cafe with his journal bookmarked once again; he's being torn in two. Moments ago he fell in love with the red-headed barrista who so nailed his order _ when she scooted that cappuccino across the counter into his his writing hand, it was clear that there was a connection. For real. And now, while blissing out, unable to concentrate on his writing, his eye catches across from him in the love seat (just left of the rack of bread loaves and under the plastic lobster chandelier) the picture of divinityitself in the shape of the most finely featured brunette he's ever seen. And she's looking this way. But which way to go? It's tragic having to make such choices. Like Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women, Lekman is a man forever at a crossroads between competing inspirations.[DUT]1. Tram # 7 to Heaven 2. Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa 3. Do You Remember the Riots? 4. You Are the Light (by which I travel into this and that) 5. If You Ever Need a Stranger (to sing at your wedding) 6. Silvia 7. The Cold Swedish Winter 8. Julie 9. Psychogirl 10. When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog 11. A Higher Power