As I slowly waltz up to the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles around eight, I sense the muggy heat of the day finally drifting up, up and away, and I smile as I see the marquee above the theatre boast in big black letters, “Lykke Li, El Perro Del Mar”.

The theatre is only beginning to fill up a handful of people at a time, as the crooning voice of the opening performer, Anna Ternheim, drifts into the outside crowd. I quickly make my way in, so as not to miss it, for I am immediately feeling myself being put under a spell by the soothing velvet flow of her voice. It reminds me of Cat Power’s older works with a hint of Jesca Hoop’s extended soothing harmonization. Standing alone on the stage, accompanied by her acoustic guitar and the rise and fall of prerecorded violin noises, she seems to capture the crowd into complete silence. The background beats dropped with a slowed down hint of Portishead-like influence.

Soonafter, Lykke Li is on stage, all clad in black, baggy 90’s pants suit and blouse, with a cacophany of gold around her neck. Bells, a peace sign, thick chain, and gold kazoo all hang off of her neck and shake around as she leads the audience into her first song, “Time Flies”. She holds in her hands a tiny tonky-sounding piano and her voice resonates in flowing echoes across the intimate El Rey atmosphere. Then her four piece band joins her with some acoustic guitar, keyboards, and slightly muffled yet strong drum background beats. Her hair is tucked into the back of her blouse and covers the sides of her face, yet when she starts singing “Dance, Dance, Dance”, she breaks out into an almost bird-like dance and the hair flies out with an explosion of movement and light and puts the audience in awe. Throughout this band’s performance, there are sounds of cowbell, tambourines being hit with drum sticks, an ample amount of kazoo solos, as well as beautiful background vocal harmonies of multiplied voices.



Being from Stockholm, Sweden, Lykke Li and her band bring a sound that doesn’t ring a familiar bell of generic repetition, but breathss a fresh perspective of making simple music with a new approach. For instance, in the song “Dance, Dance, Dance”, the only background to Lykke’s voice is drumsticks being hit on the rim of the toms and a one-stringed base line on the acoustic guitar. Yet this song makes you want to sway your hips and dance dance dance in all its’ simplicity. In the song “Little Bit”, there is a wooden xylophone-like background accompanied by a cowbell and quietly swooping, extended harmonized flute and organ noises.



El Perro Del Mar comes onstage to join Lykke Li on one of her songs, and so does Lykke Li, later on El Perro’s last song. The two bands seem very closely tied together and bring a sense of intimacy to the show and the audience’s experience of the music, for it just intertwines and goes on and on. Finally, when it is officially El Perro’s turn, the audience explodes with yells and claps as she walks forth, just her and her acoustic guitar, sporting a long, golden blouse, a miniskirt and black tights, no shoes. She opens with “Party”, a seemingly ironic title for a song of such poignant and heart-gripping lyrics and melody in minor notes. She brings a nearly eerie sound as she whistles along with her guitar. As she moves into her second song, “Dog”, the keyboardist (who also accompanied Lykke Li) joins her as well as another keyboardist, a drummer and another guitarist. She, like Lykke, uses Hare Krishna-looking bells to accompany her lyrics, which again, brought simplicity, yet fullness to her music. Her slightly strained and fragile voice carries sorrow, yet hopeful aspirations at the same time. Despite this, the cheery accompaniment, seemingly from a different era, brings a beautiful juxtaposition of despair in the world, yet ability to find the happy side to it as well. She asks the audience, “Are you happy with the world right now?”, as most people mumble yes and no, she continues, “I get moments where I am happy with the world but it’s in a naïve type of way”. Then she goes on to sing “Glory to the World” and take us again, into a whole different world of sound.

All in all, this was a night that swept me away into different eras, emotions, and countries all at the same time, all within a time span of a couple hours.
Review by Green Russian

Labels: indie, Shows, swedish