Ways that Jens Lekman has been relevant to me in the past:
1. By recording "Black Cab", a song that I listened to an awful lot over 2006 in particular - ie back when I was younger and more impressionable - and which often seems to be somehow in the air, somewhere.
2. And by generally creating a lot of fairly lovely music, which I followed "Black Cab" to along the way.
3. By doing a gig at the Corner a couple of years later, at what turned out to be a significant (at the time) point for me.
4. By moving to Melbourne for a while, leading to much wishful fantasising by Wei - who I was housemating with at the time - about running into him around the inner north and befriending him.
To be honest, I probably wouldn't have bought this one were it not for the hook that it was recorded while he was sojourning in Melbourne; I'm unabashed in my love for this city, so music (or any art) associated with it draws me. As it turns out, (a) there's only a small handful of Melbourne references on the record, and (b) that really doesn't matter, because it's a wonderful album regardless, full of poignant, literate, and sometimes rather jaunty folk-chamber-pop tunes in the Jens style. My favourite's "The End of the World is Bigger Than Love", which steals a chorus melody from "Can't Help Falling in Love" and is the better for it.
Also - a short list of lyrical Melbourne references in "The World Moves On" and my own associations:
1. I guess the 'social club' he mentions is probably the NSC. Blurry memories of gigs seen there, conversations in the margins, etc, etc.
2. The state of Victoria burning down to the ground must surely be Black Saturday (the timing is right - 2009). That was the Clauscen End period for me, and we were hosting a book club that afternoon, unaware of the horror spreading across the state, spread out across the sofas and that remarkably ugly carpet, eating grapes, spritzing each other with cold water in that air-conditioning-less old house.
3. And the Edinburgh Gardens get a mention. Probably the most quintessentially 'Melbourne' place in the whole city by my personal reckoning, and also the site of so many life events and happenings for me, good, bad, and bittersweet mixtures of the two. When a park appears in one of my dreams, it's usually this one.
1. By recording "Black Cab", a song that I listened to an awful lot over 2006 in particular - ie back when I was younger and more impressionable - and which often seems to be somehow in the air, somewhere.
2. And by generally creating a lot of fairly lovely music, which I followed "Black Cab" to along the way.
3. By doing a gig at the Corner a couple of years later, at what turned out to be a significant (at the time) point for me.
4. By moving to Melbourne for a while, leading to much wishful fantasising by Wei - who I was housemating with at the time - about running into him around the inner north and befriending him.
To be honest, I probably wouldn't have bought this one were it not for the hook that it was recorded while he was sojourning in Melbourne; I'm unabashed in my love for this city, so music (or any art) associated with it draws me. As it turns out, (a) there's only a small handful of Melbourne references on the record, and (b) that really doesn't matter, because it's a wonderful album regardless, full of poignant, literate, and sometimes rather jaunty folk-chamber-pop tunes in the Jens style. My favourite's "The End of the World is Bigger Than Love", which steals a chorus melody from "Can't Help Falling in Love" and is the better for it.
Also - a short list of lyrical Melbourne references in "The World Moves On" and my own associations:
1. I guess the 'social club' he mentions is probably the NSC. Blurry memories of gigs seen there, conversations in the margins, etc, etc.
2. The state of Victoria burning down to the ground must surely be Black Saturday (the timing is right - 2009). That was the Clauscen End period for me, and we were hosting a book club that afternoon, unaware of the horror spreading across the state, spread out across the sofas and that remarkably ugly carpet, eating grapes, spritzing each other with cold water in that air-conditioning-less old house.
3. And the Edinburgh Gardens get a mention. Probably the most quintessentially 'Melbourne' place in the whole city by my personal reckoning, and also the site of so many life events and happenings for me, good, bad, and bittersweet mixtures of the two. When a park appears in one of my dreams, it's usually this one.
