Alltjämt Knulla Brännbar (Translation: Still Bangin’ Hot)

My Swedish friends are hating me for butchering the Swedish language with my babblefish translated titles - so this one goes out to them.

I first wrote about Lykke Li back in December. At the time, she was pretty much the bees-knees in the Swedish music scene. After having only released one single (”Little Bit“) people were hailing the 21 year-old as the next Robyn. Just a few months later, and konichiwa bitches, Lykke dropped her debut LP Youth Novels. The LP was produced by Björn Yttling (of PB&J fame) and Lasse Mårtén (who after producing Kelly Clarkson singles, seems to have gotten frustrated and turned to the likes of Lykke and the Shout Out Louds to get back his street-cred). The album is a fairly solid debut for Li. If I was Pitchfork, I’d probably give it a 7.4/10.
A couple of my favorite tracks are:

1. The Jens Lekman-ish “My“, a dreamy pop number which makes me want to run through the Swedish low-land wheat fields.

Lykke Li - My

2. “Dance Dance Dance” a song about those times when you have so much on your mind, but decide to dance it off.

Lykke Li - Dance Dance Dance

3. “This Trumpet in My Head” is one of two spoken-word songs on the album. It’s got a sweet classical guitar intro, a great little trumpet section, which Lykke claims she just “can’t get out of her head”. It kind of reminds me of the first time I listened to Danielson’s “Did I Step on Your Trumpet?”.

Lykke Li - This Trumpet In My Head

In the mean time, Lykke’s also gotten to be quite tight with her fellow Scandanvians, performing a medley of songs including (her own) “Little Bit”, “Until We Bleed” and “With Every Heartbeat” with Kleerup and Robyn at the P3 Guld Award

[Update: That video got deleted. So here’s a sweet video of Lykke busking with her homies in Sweden]

Another sweet video, featuring her new-found homies, is her acoustic rendition of “I’m Good, I’m Gone” (Lykke’s latest single) with guests: Robyn, Adam & Bebban (of the Shout Out Louds), Daniel (of The Concretes), Lars Laakso and Mikael Hjalmar:

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