she comes like the widow enchantress, shrouded in black veils and cloistered in rays of light. her voice shudders with low pitches as the invocation proceeds, washing like waves of longing over the crowd:
In my mind I hear your song, it’s playing while I’m dreaming//And then it means to make it real but couldn’t stop my feeling//I hear your crying, I feel you winding//Now you’re mine, you’re mine again, swear you’d never leave me
the beat hits, the lights spray and she pulls back her cover, revealing that gorgeous face and lithe, catwalk body… strutting across the stage, for a moment, like a feline Jagger incarnate.
of all the bands i have seen since moving to LA (where everyone gives their full shot), Lykke Li shares something in common with only two other contemporary performers – they being Thom Yorke and IAMX. and that is her complete embodiment and self-possession of her physicality. to watch her is to sense the origin of her music. it is to sense her being’s connection to the sonic wavelength that is being projected. it is a beautiful thing to see. and more, it is entrancing. uplifting. healing.
for a solid 90 minutes tonight, Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson held the lower third of the legendary Greek Theater on their feet. cameras and iPhone video flares were at a minimum as the crowd danced and mouthed the words to a rush of hits (Sadness is a Blessing; I Follow Rivers; I Know Places; Until We Bleed; Get Some; and a nicely bass’d up version of the overplayed hit, Little Bit) that is remarkable considering this year’s Wounded Rhymes is her sophomore album. the tight, percussion-heavy five-piece band corroborated the energy of the performer, as she swirled and swayed with short flashes of remarkable dance floor prowess. with her drumsticks in hand, intermittently bashing high-hats and then swirling her mane into fits of static, she was bandmaster, sex idol, dervish, rock star… and most of all, a supremely talented song-writer.
and that is what came across for me most tonight. everyone knows Lykke Li can sing. she has range and she can execute her emotive will in the smallest of vocal gestures. she hits you with her words. but the sheer range of the compositional genres (from piano torch melodies to full on electronic bass progressions), the quality of which each was carried off in the amphitheater… and really, most critically, the way Li controlled the stage (and the crowd) from the moment she emerged… all speak to an artist with a depth-ridden soul. and the kind of formative, itinerant and at times heart-breaking narrative that can produce enduring, transformative channelers of the zeitgeist.
sadness is indeed a blessing.
Lykke Li – Love Out Of Lust