Ah, vaulting ambition. History and Literature are littered with cautionary tales of men who have tried to ascend to the stars on rocket ships fueled with their own reckless determination, only to forget that a star is a fiery-hot nuclear explosion that will straight-up kill you if you touch it. It happened to Icarus. t happened to Macbeth. It happened to Napoleon. Alas and alack, now it seems that melodramatic pop mastermind Jens Lekman is joining their ranks, as he fanatically attempts to release a new LP and a new EP in the same year.
In a message to fans posted on the singer/songrewriter’s website last week, Lekman goes totally off the rails, manically ranting not only about how his follow-up to 2007’s excellent Night Falls Over Kortedala (TMT Review) is coming along nicely, but also about a new EP in the works for 2011 as well. Oh, say it isn’t so, Jens!
“[The new record] has taken a long time because it started to take shape only a few months ago,” he raves. “Up until then it was a cluster of everything. As if you would have dug your hand down your pocket and just thrown the contents on the table — sort of like my three last albums and there’s nothing wrong with them but this one’s an Album. It’s been trying to tell me that the whole time.” In other words, he’s hearing voices. This is clear-cut evidence of his descent into madness.
As far as themes for the new album go, Lekman uses the word “aerodynamic” to describe the general vibe and says that he “set out to write about anything but myself and ended up writing only about myself and maybe 3-4 other people who really don’t serve any other purpose than to reflect myself. [The album has] been trying to tell me that a self portrait is not just a dialogue between you and yourself, but it’s also a dialogue with a third person — the beholder […] I have no idea where it will lead me eventually. But my plan is to get this and an EP out this year.” Okay, that solidifies it. Clearly, Lekman is an ego-centric megalomaniac and must be stopped. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
• Jens Lekman: http://jenslekman.com
• Secretly Canadian: http://secretlycanadian.com
