A Summer in 3/4 Time

Photo by Julien Bourgeois

I got the opportunity to remix my favourite song from Au Revoir Simone's beautiful album Still Night, Still Light. While listening to the song I realised how nice it'd be to transform their straight 4/4 time synthpop into a whirlwind waltz or maybe a barcarole if you will. It took a long time to chop up all the syllables and the tiny tiny samples, but I think the result got the song into a whole swirling new direction.

While making the remix, my mind started working in 3/4 and 6/8 time. I started looking around for tracks in that time signature to make a mix, I wasn't intending to but I couldn't help it. It was all a big swirl. After a while I heard it everywhere. In soul ballads, in polyrhythmical african pop, in old movies. In the ocean waves tumbling in against the shore, in the beat of a lovers heart. One two three, one two three...

Au Revoir Simone - Shadows (Jens Lekman's remix) /// Barbara Mason - Oh How It Hurts /// Thomas Mapfumo - Madiro /// the Morning Benders - Excuses /// dialogue from Gregory's Girl (1981) /// Chad & Jeremy - Everyone's Gone To The Moon /// music and dialogue from Day Of The Locust (1975) /// Eggstone - Birds In Cages /// Pete Drake - Forever /// Armando Mantovani - Around the World /// dialogue from Puberty Blues (1981) /// Jane Morgan & the Troubadours - Fascination /// Armando Trovajoli - L'Amore Dice Ciao /// Sharon O'Neill - Puberty Blues /// Like A Sleepy Blue Ocean

I just occurred to me that over the years I've replied to over 25.000 emails from you people. Twenty five thousand. I hope that doesn't make anyone feel insignificant. I treasure every one of those conversations, they are the one thing that gets me through the day.

We need a topic of the month though. The topic for the month of July will be "Quitting". Whatever connotations that word has to you.

Love,
JL

"Street The Beat was a group of very talented latino ex-gang members from the South Bronx. The group consisted of the Melendez brothers: Benjy, Robert and Victor on his "custom" drum kit, the original group also featured Manny Cortez. Cousin David Silver joined the group when Manny left for Wisconsin. The group's original purpose was to prove that you can leave the gangs and drugs behind and do something positive with your life. Here they are on "Hispanic Horizons" in 1983 with original member Manny Cortez doing an original song. Unfortunately Victor passed away about 10 years ago. but brothers Robert and Benjy are still out their doing their thing with the Ghetto Brothers"

Sorry for the lack of writing here lately, but you should know by now that I come and go. It's healthy. I think sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the wanting to write big truths. Then you realise the only way to write big truths is to avoid the big truths.

As I'm writing this I'm at the Helsinki airport, just about to fly into Gothenburg where I'll be spending the northern summer. Just in time for the continued inbreeding of our symbolic ruling class. I discuss this with an older finnish man, dressed in business, sitting across the table at the airport café. He thinks the king has a nice smile and I agree. We talk about the importance of it, that your beauty often relies on your mouth and the facial muscles that make up your smile. We look at a photo of the royal couple in the paper and come to the conclusion that the bridegroom needs to relax those muscles more. It would do him good.

I tell him that as the simple peasant I am, I have no objections to the idea of a monarchy. Just as long as I don't have to pay for these bozos with their dark family history and sometimes frightening opinions to travel the world and represent me on official missions and ribbon cutting ceremonies in the world. It's hard for me to see the monarchy as a harmless institution since everytime they open their mouths they manage to sell a couple of fighter jets. That's what I tell him.

Anti-royalism might be politically correct, so are a lot of other things I feel strongly about in my native homeland. But the way things are in Sweden right now, politically correct really seems like something to strive for. If politically incorrect by now simply means hating foreigners, then yes.

I tell the finnish man I'm excited about this northern summer because I've spent three years away and while I don't miss my former home, I find it exotic now. The jacket I've brought along to make it through the cold nights does not weigh heavy on my shoulders like it used to. I intend to walk over daggstänkta berg and fill those pockets with styvmorsviol. The finnish man doesn't know styvmorsviol. I web translate it for him: keto-orvokki.

The finnish man gets up and leaves for the taxfree shop and I realise it's time to head to the gate. An old lingering cleptomania makes me pick up the salt shaker from the table and put it in my bag. But a righteousness deep within protests, I let them fight it out and eventually put the salt shaker back on the table.

Europe
with a full, formidable band

Aug 1 - Dublin, Ireland - Whelans
Aug 3 - London, UK - Union Chapel
Aug 4 - Paris, France - Nouveau Casino
Aug 5 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Paradiso
Aug 7 - Stockholm, Sweden - Strand
Aug 9 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
Aug 10 - Hamburg, Germany - Kunst
Aug 11 - Berlin, Germany - Lido
Aug 13 - Göteborg, Sweden - Way Out West

That's me in front of the Story Bridge in Brisbane, where I'm doing two backyard shows this month ! Well not on the actual bridge, but in Brisbane.

1. Friday March 19th
Brisbane, the Inner West
From 7 pm
18+ (Bring ID)
With Epithets and Little Scout

2. Saturday March 20th
Brisbane, the Inner North
From 3 pm
All ages
With Big Strong Brute and Lion Island

For those of you new to the backyard shows, here's a little background: Because of my current visa situation I can't do shows in real venues with real tickets. So to stay out of trouble I am doing these shows in peoples backyards instead. They're fun, intimate, much more enjoyable than normal shows. The way it works is that I send out a newsletter (this one will go out monday the 15th at 3pm) and the first to RSVP get theirs and a friends name on the list, plus the address and full instructions.

Thanks to Nikolaus for setting these shows up and having patience with me !

Have you heard Tracey Thorn's new song "Oh, The Divorces"? There's a verse in there where she sings:

"Oh Jens, oh Jens
Your songs seem to look through a different lens
You're still so young
Love ends just as easy as it's begun"

I feel like every song, every word I've written since I first heard this song has been an attempt to shake it off. But the problem is that she's right. I've never heard anyone prove the impossibility of eternal love like Tracey.

THANK YOU CHICAGO