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Lykke Li
Brighton, C2
Article written by
Alex S - Oct 5, 2008
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Lykke Li
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What’s it like watching Lykke Li Timotej Zachrisson? To answer that question one has to explore the sticky waters of the gender zeitgeist. Lykke Li is building a repertoire of tiny, brittle songs that speak poetically yet specifically from a female perspective. No man would write lines like “I feel weak, I get weepy; I miss sleep, I get moody”. Or about the secret and erotic thrill of crying, “I like it soft, I like it wet; I like my make-up in a mess, so I cry hard”. But to see the amount of man-gloop hanging from C2’s Victorian ceiling tonight you’d be forgiven for thinking her gender specific verse was being overlooked somewhat. My first presentiment moment came as early as the second song. The inappropriately excessive whooping that greeted a heavy handed version of ‘Let it Fall’, stripped of tenderness by some Adam and the Ants style drumming was a portent of much pocket shuffling throughout the evening. I was assured there was a fair smattering of women in the crowd, but I dread to think what they made of all this male ‘sexuality’.
Despite being cast as sexual fodder, to her credit she never once played on this. Lykke Li’s performance was as unpretentious as it was wholehearted. She cavorts around the stage like a contorted ballerina. Sporting excessive comic bling, a cross between Halloween Goth and Jay-Z, heavy set eyes masked beneath a curtain fringe and what looked worryingly like a bat costume, she strikes an imposing figure. She is pure theatre. Those old enough to remember might be reminded of a young Kate Bush. But her personal magnetism only served to expose the limitations of her band. Although they improved as the evening progressed, the sound and performance was strangely out of kilter with Lykke Li’s quotidian glory. Far too lumpy and pedestrian, at times lacking the subtlety, at others the punch, that her music deserves.
The songs were a real disconnected grab-bag of influences. A virtuoso solo performance of ‘Tonight’, some risible attempts at ‘dance’. A shimmering Donna Summer style disco version of ‘Breaking it Up’ followed by an obscure blues cover that smacked of ‘I’m quite deep really’. At one point she bemoaned having just ten songs to her name, which led to the band playing four covers. Yet oddly she omitted several songs from debut album Youth Novels (2008). Unforgivably this included the magnificent ‘Everybody But Me’ which is worth the purchase price alone. It occupies territory explored by The Smiths ‘How Soon is Now? from a uniquely female angle. “I get the creeps, from all the people in here. I cannot breathe; I don’t want to be touched, hurt, bothered by all the fellas, who want to take me home without knowing my name”. She knows her audience too well.
An enjoyable if somewhat disjointed evening. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes poor, liberated by Lykke Li’s commanding performance of vitality and splendour. Yet as one excitable Lykkette declared at the end of the gig, “I would never wank over Lykke Li; I respect her talent too much”. Now there’s a dilemma.
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