Pitchfork

It's been almost two years since we fell in love with Jens Lekman's last record, Oh You're So Silent Jens, and in that time our love has only grown stronger for the heartbroken Swedish heartbreaker, thanks in part to his fantastic performance at the 2006 Pitchfork Music Festival, as well as his awesome blog posts.

Now, our affection can blossom even further, with the announcement of the new Lekman album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, out September 5 in Scandinavia on Service and October 9 on Secretly Canadian in America. As previously reported, it will be preceded by the "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo" single, out digitally July 31.

Thanks to reader Bryan M. Young for the heads-up.

We already know that at least three songs on the record are great. "Bingo" has been streaming, Lekman's been playing "A Postcard to Nina" live for awhile (including at the festival), and the exuberant "The Opposite of Hallelujah" came out originally in 2005 on Hidden Camera Joel Gibb's Evil Evil label.

And if all that wasn't enough, Kortedala features guest spots from buddies Frida Hyvönen and El Perro Del Mar.

According to a quote from Jens on the Secretly Canadian website, the album is a sort of love letter/kiss-off to the Kortedala neighborhood of Gothenburg that he calls home:

"What a depressing suburban hell this place is. Everyone goes to bed at nine, after that you can't see one single window lit up. You can walk for hours without meeting one single person. I used to like that, 'cause it meant I could go for endless walks and pretend the world was my own and I was the only one in it. But after a while I found out the hard way that there were others who couldn't sleep at night.

"On my way into town I got beat up and mugged one night three years ago. Since then it's happened so many times I've lost count. It's never been that bad, I've never ended up in the hospital or lost anything too valuable really. But it's the atmosphere and the small incidents that scare me. The guys who yell 'faggot' at me when I pass their balcony, the nazis hanging out in a nearby open garage, the old men with their binoculars who sit in their windows looking for anything suspicious to report, the dead cats that show up on the lawn outside my kitchen, the knock on my window at four a.m. this summer followed by a whispered 'when he opens you hit him in the head,' the neighbour I constantly find passed out in the staircase, the flicker of a million tv screens against the livingroom walls, the smoke from a million chainsmoking moms, the fact that the guy who lived in my apartment before me lay dead in the bathtub for three months before they found him.

"In Kortedala everyone's minding their own business. And I'm slowly turning into one of them so as soon as I've finished this record I will get the hell out of here."

But the album isn't the only new Lekman music in the pipeline. In August, Rough Trade will release the Four Songs by Arthur Russell EP, featuring Arthur Russell covers by Lekman, Vera November (aka Verity Sussman of Electrelane), Taken by Trees (aka Victoria Bergsman), and the aforementioned Joel Gibb. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's been in the works for at least two years-- Lekman talked about it in his "Ten Best Songs I Discovered in 2005" Guest List. All four will play a record-release party in Stockholm on August 20.

As for touring plans, Lekman has a few European shows lined up for August and September, and he'll head Stateside in the fall. So far, only one U.S. show has been announced: November 2 at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago.

Night Falls Over Kortedala:

01 And I Remember Every Kiss
02 Sipping On the Sweet Nectar
03 The Opposite of Hallelujah
04 A Postcard to Nina
05 Into Eternity
06 I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You
07 If I Could Cry (It Would Feel Like This)
08 Your Arms Around Me
09 Shirin
10 It Was a Strange Time in My Life
11 Kanske Ar Jag Kar I Dig
12 Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo

Four Songs by Arthur Russell:

01 Vera November - Our Last Night Together
02 Jens Lekman - A Little Lost
03 Taken by Trees - Make 1, 2
04 Joel Gibb - That's Us / Wild Combination

Jens dates:

08-13 Gothenburg, Sweden - Cafe Publik *
08-14 Varberg, Sweden - Majas *
08-17 Stockholm, Sweden - Tradgarden * (DJ set)
08-18 Arhus, Denmark - Pop Revo 07
08-20 Stockholm, Sweden - Stockholmsterassen !
09-14 Bergen, Norway - Phonofestivalen
09-15 Olso, Norway - John Dee
09-16 Salisbury, England - End of the Road Festival
11-02 Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium

* with Guy Blackman
! with Joel Gibb, Victoria Bergsman, Verity Sussman