You Are The Light

Opening with all the pomp of a ferocious episode of The Price is Right, You Are the Light finds Jens Lekman in full effect, ditching the samples in favor of – gasp! – real musicians performing in a real studio. Jens even flew to Denmark to work with the pre-eminent Horn Quartet of continental Europe. You Are the Light showcases the blossoming of a master songwriter discovering his voice & his method in the most classic sense. Just as pop stars Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker and Prince segued from their early work into their more wildly iconoclastic periods, You are the Light signals not only a birthing for Jens, but also the end of an era for him. On this EP, we also find Jens at perhaps his most vulnerable, the spare “A Man Walks Into A Bar”, is essentially just Jens and a mic – nada mas. This EP serves as a coda to his upcoming debut full-length When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, having been recorded at the tail end of those album sessions, and, ultimately, it gives a small insight into where this burgeoning maestro is going.

At only 23, Lekman has deservedly been the center of much hype in Scandinavia as of late. Having made a name for himself performing under the name Rocky Dennis, he recently hit #2 on the Swedish national pop charts for the title track to this EP. Most everyone who’s heard him believes him to be the next great pop star emerging from the streets of the DIY underground. With an angelic voice and golden ears he seems to be drinking from the same hard waters as Harry Nilsson, the Magnetic Fields, Runt-era Todd Rundgren, Bill Callahan’s Smog, the Modern Lovers, Rufus Wainwright, and Belle & Sebastian.