There are always albums that I quickly regret not having included on my yearly list, and that's truly the case of Jónsi's debut solo album, Go. As with his previous work with Sigur Rós, this is really slow-moving stuff - it's not the kind of album you're immediately crazy about, but over a few months, it's turned out to be just a masterpiece. There's such a presence of growth, vivacity and luxuriance in this. Take the intense opening pair of 'Go Do' and 'Animal Arithmetic', both very existential, lively pieces, that give way to 'Tornado' and 'Boy Lilikoi', a painful couple of gut-wrenchingly beautiful ballads. Or a track like 'Kolniður', which is a masterpiece of obscure gloominess. Go is an incredibly comprehensive and virilely life-affirming record.
Another Nordic bloke that I've listened quite a lot to as of late is Jens Lekman. His revelation has come pretty slowly, but is now pretty full-fledged. I know how everyone always rave about his best album being Night Falls Over Kortedala, his latest full-lengther, but my initial exposure has been to the inaptly titled Oh You're So Silent Jens, which is, in fact (I just found out), a compilation of three EPs Lekman released during 2004. What really carries Lekman through even the corniest of his arrangements are his lyrical wit; the way he intelligently describes very well known situations. I've often raved about 'Sky Phenomenon', where the sunset to Lekman looks "like someone spilled a beer all over the atmosphere.", and how he can't join the migratory birds on their trek south, apparently because he can't dance the funky chicken. But how about the clavichord-heavy 'Black Cab', where Lekman even risks getting killed by "psycho killer-cabbies" just to get home from a party. Haven't we all been in that situation? Or how about 'Someone To Share My Life With'? Normally, only really black and really gangsta rappers have got the cred to sing about blowjobs and fake orgasms, but Lekman breaks the rules - he "doesn't want a girl, who thinks she has to fake", nor wants "a girl to go down on her knees." He just wants someone to share his life with - how tender.
But there are also high musical proficiencies, often vocal, in spite of Lekman's very poor English and very poor voice, such as the clever acapella-bass of 'Pocketful of Money' and the heartbeat-chorus of 'A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill', and 'Julie', which is a beautiful little love song (in which Lekman manages to squeeze in "lots of ketchup and mayonnaise" anyway.) Another high is when 'I Saw Her In The Anti-War Demonstration', where Lekman proclaims that "now there's nothing left but love enough to feed a family, but I just want to feed Emily with lukewarm English beer and vegan pancakes". Emily, ofcourse, is a punk Lekman met in this demonstration. It just couldn't be any other way, could it? The best lyrical quote of Oh You're So Silent Jens really deserves to stand alone, it's from 'Pocketful of Money':
I could say that you were pretty -
that would make me a liar.
But you turn my legs to spaghetti,
and set my heart on fire.Who has never thought that?
