Angelic and dramatic voice, dressed severely in all black, with a thick kohl-lined eyes and nude lips, she emits an aloof elegance with a hint of drama.
Few artists hypnotize like Swedish pop singer Lykke Li (pronounced Licky Lee). Her sultry, percussive pop songs on her first two albums, Youth Novels and Wounded Rhymes, work their way deep into your head and eventually into your heart.
On her third album, I Never Learn, Lykke Li makes something very different but equally mesmerizing: nine simple but profound power ballads. So I Never Learn is not a sudden turn towards maturity, but it is a wonderful testament to someone who has loved, been hurt, and feels lonely: something universal anyone can relate to.
Lykke Li is no stranger to the world of film either. She has been on many soundtracks. A collaboration with David Lynch on a song record and recently, she recorded a song for the Swedish crime movie Tommy and even appeared in a feature film herself. The film was directed by Tarik Saleh, who also directed Lykke´s video for “I follow rivers”.
With this new album, the attitude has no double-meaning : this is me, take it or leave it. Through this album, she has found the strength to step out and simply show herself as she is. A Swedish girl who is not even keen on being thought of as Swedish. Her mother made it her religion to make her un-Swedish as possible. As her mum said to her once : “My mother made me as un-Swedish as possible, and was always like, ‘When you can, get the fuck out of here. The world is so much bigger”.
As a child she lived in Lisbon, Morocco, India before moving to Brooklyn as a teenager then back to Sweden and finally LA. Her fierce of independence clearly fuel her music.
This album is like the end of a trilogy of a young woman’s exploration of youth, love, lust, hope, despair, sadness, madness.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYbEL06lEU]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LETadzDGOs]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SrEdAeGj6Y]
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