Jens Lekman
Though he comes from a town called Angered, Jens Lekman is quite a mild mannered, 26 year old Swede. Around the age of 19, he began recording and distributing his own music, though he was mistakenly referred to as Rocky Dennis for a few years after a CD-R of his bearing the title ‘Rocky Dennis’ Farewell Song To The Blind Girl’ got people all confused as to who Jens Lekman actually was. When even radio stations started to refer to him as Rocky Dennis, it became clear that some drastic action needed to be taken.
So in 2004, Jens Lekman killed off his unwanted alter ego with the ‘Rocky Dennis In Heaven’ EP. Swedish radio stations now only had the actual Jens to plug, and plug him they did, making songs like ‘Maple Leaves’ and especially ‘Black Cab’ omnipresent on Scandinavian airwaves, and leading to Mr. Lekman’s services as Sweden’s greatest pop singer being snapped up by Secretly Canadian Records.
Toward the end of ’04, you could find Jens’ first full length record on the shelves. Entitled When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, it propelled Jens to number six in the Swedish chart, got him nominated for three Swedish Grammies and a whole host of other awards. Despite the record containing material dating right back to 2000, there still wasn’t enough space on it to cover all of Jens’ output during the period. To counter this, Oh You’re So Silent Jens came in to existence in December of 2005, compiling his first three EPs.
Jens then retreated to Kortedala to work on brand new material, which surfaced in the shape of this year’s already classic Night Falls Over Kortedala LP, released in October of this year. It’s a glorious rainbow of samples, strings, brass, ukuleles and the wittiest, most heartbreaking lyrics of ’07. Ownership should be mandatory. In Sweden, it pretty much is.
JENSLEKMAN.COM: Far from snazzy, but full of Jens’ own idiosyncrasies, the song index is well worth a look – the boy’s been very, very busy.
MYSPACE.COM/THESONGSOFJENS: Oddly, nothing from his sterling new album (you’ll just have to go out and buy it), but all kinds of remixes, hard to find seven inches to stream and the usual crap adorn this fan-made MySpace pagerino (Jens deleted his own personal MySpace account, calling it an “affront to everything I loved about pop music”, just so’s you know!).
JENS LEKMAN @ SECRETLY CANADIAN: Mr. Lekman’s US label offer you some real treats – download MP3s, for free, of tracks from each of his records, including some hard to find stuff and the best track from his current lp, one called ‘The Opposite Of Hallelujah’. This is also the place to come for news, tour dates an’ such.
MAPLELEAVES.SE: Here you can chat away to other Jens obsessives to your heart’s content, swap live bootlegs, or download covers of Jens Lekman songs by other fans. Terrifyingly comprehensive.
NIGHT FALLS OVER KORTEDALA: Infamously, Tim Dellow awarded Jens’ second album proper a full five out of five star rating before he’d even finished listening to the thing for the first time.
YOU ARE THE LIGHT:
BLACK CAB:
YOUR ARMS AROUND ME (LIVE):
THE OPPOSITE OF HALLELUJAH: