As someone in the crowd wisely pointed out at the Jens Lekman show at the Paradise on Monday: “Sweden’s a weird place, man.” True to these words, Lekman has crafted a brand of pop that is uniquely Swedish.
Lekman’s sound is witty and whimsical, often belying the serious, structured form his music takes. His vocals sound how Sinatra looked: They’re smooth, strong and elegant all while hiding a sardonic side that’s sometimes lost in the beauty of his arrangements.
Lekman boasts an overwhelmingly large studio sound that was, for the most part, satisfyingly reproduced live. And what he couldn’t recreate sonically, Lekman compensated for physically, backed by a band of five stunning Swedish women clad in matching white outfits.
Lekman’s ladies carried the instrumental melodies, substituting strings for guitar on the infectious “Black Cab,” and nailing the brass hooks on “Postcard to Nina,” a song Lekman wrote about visiting his lesbian penpal in Berlin.
In “Another Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill,” the audience took its cue from a beaming Lekman, completing the chorus with frenzied screams that stayed true to the studio track.
While Lekman could only improve on the grandeur of his big band pieces, he preferred a minimalist approach on his more intimate songs. “Pocketful of Money” and “Shirin,” which he performed solo, lost the edge that they have on record.
Part of Lekman’s studio strength comes from his complex arrangements of classical instruments, bizarre samples and a catchy but subtle rhythm section. By breaking his songs down to just vocals and guitar, Lekman lost the majority of his hooks, causing his set to drag in places.
Luckily for him, where his hooks failed, his humor prevailed. Before he played “Postcard to Nina,” Lekman spoke in a low, pretend seductive voice over soft horns and softer guitar.
He sets the scene, lays down the mood and gives a pretext for the story, all the while stealing sultry glances at the audience and filling the silence with cutesy guitar riffs.
He’s forward in his delivery, and when he sings the opening line (“Nina, I can’t be your boyfriend, so you can stay with your girlfriend”), the audience is caught.
At certain points in the set, the band dropped its instruments to let pre-recorded loops play while they soared around stage like airplanes with tilted bodies and outstretched hands. They captured a pop essence relatively unexplored in current indie music.
It’s a performance more than a concert, something akin to The Decemberists or Of Montreal, who also augment their live shows with sequenced dances and outrageous stage props.
Balance between the insane and the inane is tough to find, but Jens and his crew successfully traverse the line, delivering a truly engaging live show.
