Music PREVIEWS
POP LYKKE LI The Arches, Glasgow, Mon 18 Apr
From Robyn to Miike Snow and the fast-approaching Sound of Arrows, the fine line in pop acts with indie cachet emanating from Sweden continues unbroken. If Lykke Li can convert the glowing critical reception that has met her recent second album into commercial success, the Stockholm-based chanteuse – given name Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson – could end up being the Scandinavian country’s biggest export in a while, much as it might spell more pain for a performer who evidently believes in suffering for her art.
At time of writing, Wounded Rhymes is just behind releases from PJ Harvey and James Blake on meta-review websites as one of the critics’ favourite longplayers of 2011 so far. Produced by Björn Ytlling – of Peter, Björn and John – it trails Zachrisson’s debut set Youth Novels by just three years, yet sounds like the work of a singer and songwriter who has lived a whole lifetime in the interim. From cutesy, precocious elfin pop oddball, she’s matured into a Phil Spector-produced 60s girl groups-loving purveyor of stark break-up songs ranging in mood from playful to confrontational to downright doomy. ‘Sadness is my boyfriend,’ Zachrisson laments on Shangri La’s- style ballad centrepiece ‘Sadness Is a Blessing’. We don’t believe for one second that the statuesque 24-year-old hasn’t had a better offer, but the message over the course of the album is clear: she’s a bleeding-hearted, bloody-minded artiste whose lyrics are now, as she puts it, ‘darker, moodier . . . heavier’, as she evokes none more plainly than during ‘Silent Song’. ‘You see pain like it is pleasure,’ she sings, her vocals multi-layered in a reverby wall of sound, ‘like a work of art.’ Where Robyn dances the heartbreak away, Zachrisson freezes her tears in still moments of naked vulnerability, and that’s always a winning formula – just look at Adele’s rise and rise for proof. This Swede might just be one moment-capturing hit away from a similarly sharp upwards trajectory. (Malcolm Jack)
COMEBACK RAZORLIGHT Part of Haddowfest, Picture House, Edinburgh, Sat 2 Apr, see www.haddowfest.com for line-up
Razorlight have a chequered history. Undeniably, they’ve had big success, including the undeniably hook-laden ‘America’ and ‘Somewhere Else’. Yet lead singer, Johnny Borrell, Camdenite scenester and tabloid cannon fodder par excellence, was always a villain-in-waiting, not least for annoying statements – like the time he proclaimed himself a genius. So now his band are back with no original members, we can’t wait to see him fail. Right? Maybe not, if Razorlight’s new drummer, David
‘Skully’ Kaplan, is anything to go by. The New Yorker is blessed with the puppy dog enthusiasm you might expect from a guy who’s joined a band that was playing stadiums not so long ago. ‘We’re havin’ a blast, man, we’ve been partying like crazy,’ he says. ‘Johnny’s good, the music’s happening for him, he’s in a band with people he wants to be with.’
‘Smaller’ shows like this are a prelude to bigger festival sets in the summer. ‘We’ve been working on new songs, too,’ says Skully. ‘And then we should have a new album out later in the year.’ For his sake, we hope bygones are bygones. (David Pollock)
80 THE LIST 31 Mar–28 Apr 2011
KATY PERRY: DECONSTRUCTED We look at the California Gurl’s vital signs 45% Killer pop hooks There’s no doubting her innate ability to cobble together relentlessly catchy choruses. From ‘I Kissed a Girl’’s sapphic pop or stadium-filling ‘Firework’, whether anyone has in fact ‘ever felt like a plastic bag’ is irrelevant, it’s still stuck in your head. 25% Spray-on rubber dress collection KP has a penchant for skintight frocks, squeezing her every which way but loose (although there have been some close calls) in eye-gouging patterns – from a Union Jack stars’n’stripes hybrid to electric pink palm trees. 15% Celebrity husband In one of the least likely celebrity unions, Perry married comedian Russell Brand last year in India. It’s been good tabloid fodder, although they look more boring and settled by the day. 10% Budding gospel star Perry (birth-name Katy Hudson) dreamt of being a gospel singer after being raised a devout Christian. After making an album in her teens, it took a few stop-starts and a rather drastic makeover to push her to the top of the pop heap. 5% Twitter photo controversy A picture of her, sans make-up, posted by Brand, created a media whirlwind. Then again, she has previously posted a photo of herself naked in a bath eating pizza, so. . . (Ryan Drever) ■ Katy Perry plays Glasgow’s SECC, Tue 5 Apr.
SOUND RECORDIST/ARTIST CHRIS WATSON InSpace, Edinburgh, Fri 22 Apr
How do you go from being a core member of experimental electronic pioneers Cabaret Voltaire to becoming David Attenborough and Bill Oddie’s favourite sound recordist? Sheffield-born Chris Watson doesn’t have an answer for his wayward career trajectory over the last 30-odd years but, on the eve of a trip to Iceland to make a programme for BBC Radio 4, prior to a week-long Edinburgh residency care of Edinburgh International Science Festival and leftfield music promoters Dialogues, neither does he see much difference between his assorted outlets. ‘I’m essentially a sound recordist,’ Watson
enthuses. ‘I don’t see any distinction between any of the things I do. Something I might do for TV might end up informing an installation work, but what I get excited by is the release of moving out of the studio. Sounds outside are much more liberating.’ For his residency, Watson will trawl the sonic architecture of North Berwick. ‘I’m interested in trying to capture that interface between land and sea,’ he says. ‘It’s about trying to capture the soul of a place.’ (Neil Cooper) ■ www.dialogues-festival.org