Jens Lekman

Jens Lekman's musical persona is a mixture of Morrissey's morose but puckish wit, Jonathan Richman's naive poesy and the left-field pop sensibilities of cellist/composer/disco artist Arthur Russell. Lekman can take a sad sentiment and turn it into a soaring pop song, as he does on "Black Cab" from his Maple Leaves EP: "I killed the party again/ I ruined it for my friends/ Oh you're so silent Jens." His earliest recorded materials were the self-released CD-Rs and seven-inch records that began to circulate while Lekman was still a teenager. Swedish radio eventually picked up "Black Cab" and "Maple Leaves." "You Are the Light," from his first LP, When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, became a hit, garnering three Swedish Grammy nominations for that record. An arresting performer, he has been known to arrive onstage with a ukulele to accompany him, and the production on his records ranges from infectious Merseybeat rave-ups to melancholy baroque pop laments.