Photo by Patricia Reyes

Sweden's Lykke Li made waves in 2008 with Youth Novels' revealing turn, a pin-sharp debut striking a smart balance between sighing, sixties girl pop and jump-rope swagger. Returning with a darker, more direct sound which the singer-songwriter told a recent interviewer was inspired at least in part by 'pussy power', we grabbed five with Li to discuss her new album, Wounded Rhymes, out on February 28.

 

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First of all, where was the new record written and recorded?

 

I wrote it in New York, LA and a little in Stockholm. I went back (to Sweden from LA) because I felt I wanted to go back to my roots and play with the people who know me instead of working with some hotshot dude who wants to be in control of everything. We camped out at different studios for a few days at a time and drank red wine and had all these African percussion instruments. It was recorded live, a lot of the songs on the record are first takes. I got two of my girlfriends in singing with me for backing vocals, that was so nice. They're both singers and artists in their own right but it was great, harmonies are really just food for your soul.

 

And you worked again with Björn Yttling (of Peter, Bjorn and John renown)?

 

That's right. I had some other offers but I just couldn't bring myself to find a reason why I shouldn't work with him, I mean I had some talks with people but they didn't say anything interesting.

 

 

Do you see what you do as being fundamentally 'pop' or do you see yourself as operating more in a singer-songwriter mould?

 

Well I mean, what is pop? When I think about the artists of today who are considered pop I don't think I sound like them. But I feel like that's not really for me to say. I can only do what feels right for me. Probably I feel like people would love it if I could make this big pop record, if I started really selling records. Like with the last one, a lot of people downloaded that record, a lot. But I'm not on the charts or anything, even back home.

 

One aspect of Youth Novels which was particularly enjoyable was its minimal approach to arrangement, is tha something you've been keen to pursue with the new record?

 

Yeah, definitely. My whole aesthetic is less-is-more - even the way I dress, everything. And Björn as well, he's from up north in Sweden which is very minimal, there's nothing there!

 

You recently collaborated on a track with Kanye West and seem to go over well with the hip-hop crowd in general, is that something you're proud of?

 

Absolutely. I love hip-hop - (Björn and I) think hip-hop when we make music, I'll be like 'this Lil Wayne song is so dope, how can we get this song to have as much BOOM', you know? (laughs)

 

You've been known to wear the Flavor Flav-style chain onstage as well, right?

 

Yeah... when nobody tells me not to! Sometimes I think I shouldn't be doing those things 'cos I'm not a rapper.

 

 

You've spoken about how you wanted to 'trim the baby fat' with the new record, what did you mean by that?

 

I suppose it's inevitable that people judge you on the way you look and sound, but (with the first record) I felt that was all they judged me by. They couldn't see beyond my baby fat (laughs). Being a young woman they write you off quite easily so I felt like I wanted to be so much more direct, and have like people listen to what I say instead.

 

Are there any contemporary musicians who you feel offer interesting perspectives on sex and gender right now?

 

I like artists like Fever Ray, Beth Ditto and Antony & The Johnsons. People who are playing with different roles, you know?

As Stalker, Chicago-based musician Brendan Telzrow makes a terrifying mix of molasses-thick drone and chopped 'n' screwed hip-hop so heavy it's like having a squadron of tanks ride a slow procession over your chest. Currently releasing music via witch house affiliates Tri Angle, he also has the noble distinction of being the only artist we know of that can boast remixes of both These New Puritans and Lindsay Lohan on his CV. We checked under the bed and got a quick word in with the shadowy cove, who is currently recording his debut EP for the label.

 

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So are you from Chicago originally? Or are you just living there?

 

I have lived in Chicago for seven years but I'm not from here originally. But I don't have much of an opinion on the place because I spend a lot of time inside. I enjoy it.

 

What were the immediate influences on your deciding to make music? When did you start out?

 

It varies, but they're commonly related to those studying the effects and implementation of frequencies that you hear in music and daily incidental exposure. Also, the art of pop music as a consumer based product. (Sigmund Freud's nephew and public relations pioneer) Edward Bernays' Propaganda could be a framework for my interests.

 

I started playing several instruments when I was younger. In high school there was a recording class, with computers being somewhat exotic then there was less supervision over the rest of the equipment. If you weren't a very serious student, you would take a drum machine and go abuse the reel-to-reel machines with about five people in a small padded closet.

 

What's the significance of the 'III' legend which is emblazoned on your website?

 

For a while I was treating a lot of appropriated tracks with a general pattern. The 'III' just refers to a certain group of them, but I think I exhausted everything I can do there.

 

At the risk of sounding cynical, is witch house not just black metal for seen-it-all hipster kids? Is it a label you're happy to ally yourself with? How about horrorcore? Illbient?

 

I don't know, the genres name you. I feel a lot better not thinking about that aspect. I enjoy listening to some things slowed down, but it's not the goal for me. I'm inspired by anyone using the tools they have to manipulate sound and media to impart or evoke a thought.

 

On your remix of 'White Chords' you make the line "I've got white chords running through my body" seem an expression of body horror straight out of a Cronenberg movie, is that something you can sympathise with?

 

Maybe it could have been in SHIVERS. I think there can be parallels there, sure. I feel a restraint listening to the original 'White Chords' but there is some angst there. Likewise Cronenberg shows us similar internal battles.

 

 

What do you find scary?

 

...

 

I also think These New Puritans and the acts commonly associated with witch house share a certain fascination with secret histories, would you agree? What's the significance of that?

 

I don't think the fascination is limited to one genre or medium even. It's inherent to keep secrets, from ourselves and others. To protect something. Knowing there are limitations, we know we're also protected from something foreign inside us.

 

What's your favourite horror soundtrack of all time?

 

Rosemary's Baby.

 

Which hip-hop MCs would you like to work with and why?

 

I'd rather work with a new and unproven MC, as long as the chemistry is there, and I could have more of a developing role in defining their sound. Aside from that, if I had the chance to work with any vocalist right now I would like Ke$ha, which is maybe not a popular viewpoint, but I've come to love her voice recently.

 

You contributed to a Lindsey Lohan drag remix series quite recently (for Tri Angle Presents: Let Me Shine For You, downloadable here), is there anything about LiLo in particular that you think is crying out for a chopped and screwed makeover?

 

It was a good template to extract different feelings from her music and find some other themes. I didn't notice this until recently, but there are actually seven songwriters credited for that track ('Disconnected'). In retrospect the completely vague but calculated lyrics make perfect sense, reinforcing the underlying themes of multiple personality in her career and a lot of popular culture. As much as I think about this stuff, most of the time I'm trying to not think about anything when I make music.

 

Is your name derived at all from the Andrei Tarkovsky film of the same name? If so, what qualities does the film possess that you hope to bring to your music?

 

I did watch the film sometime before using that name, so yes. It's not fresh in my mind so I'll have to address that some other time.

 

What've you got going on in 2011?

 

I'm recording my EP now for Tri Angle, and mixing some tracks for How To Dress Well. I hope to continue making music as much as I can.

 

Wild Beasts really nailed their colours to the mast with 2009's Two Dancers, a superlative release confirming the band as one of the more inspiring instances of British boys picking up guitars in recent memory. Their sparky debut - Limbo, Panto - had been the very essence of adolescent awkwardness, with a full set of adult features but lacking the werewithal to frame them elegantly, but in flying the nest with such unexpected grace its follow-up represented a daring coup. Now with a third, more electronically-inclined third album in the can and ready to do business sometime in the spring, we caught up with frontmen Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming to find out more...

 

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Hello there, and well done on finishing the new record.

Hayden:"Thanks, we're all really excited. The important thing about how we approach making records is we do it before we have time to overthink it so it's always very cathartic, always an expelling of things. We always end up with a record before we know what the record is, so we can't second guess ourselves - if we did that we'd end up getting ourselves in a right tangle. All the decisions we make have to be instinctive and guttural, it's like the biggest decisions can seem like the smallest decisions when you just go ahead and make them.

 

 

Thematically you've been inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for the album - what other areas have the lyrics been exploring this time around?

 

Tom: "It's the same areas we were at last time, this sense of things being seen through someone else's eyes and it not necessarily being the truth, it's always magnified. There's a Brazilian writer called Clarice Lispector, who I think is without question the best writer I've ever discovered. She was writing in the seventies and eighties, her thing is definitely to do with how the self is a prison to the world and how it's not necessarily true what you're reading. But you have to be positive, and I think the record is softer, a happier record than maybe we were expecting. It sounds like I'm talking about the muse I have no control over, but our whole modus operandi is not about sitting around waiting for the muse to attend, we like to move quickly."

 

Hayden: "It's been very cathartic. We've been on the road for a year as all bands do, we're not exceptional in that sense. The difference is that when we were really exhausted we just went straight in to rehearse and used that as our comfort and consoling device, and that's why the music became very integral to us really, because we relied on it. It's just a very human record, it's more relaxed - much more so than we thought it would end up being."

 

Do you have a title yet?

 

Hayden: "We've got some ideas. It's like looking through a kaleidoscope and trying to pick out a certain colour. But it's been very exhausting it's been very natural and essential really, when you make a record it's like building a world for yourself that you're going to have to live in, just as the one behind you starts to collapse - we're gonna have to play this record for two years now. There's that split second where you have to jump between the two."

 

And you spent time in Dalston writing for the record, is that right?

 

Hayden: "All the writing was done in Dalston, we were there for six weeks. For us it was amazing, The Horrors were next door, we'd walk down the street and bump into friends of ours like Ben from Fuck Buttons... Fuck Buttons are a huge influence, we adore their music and to just bump into them on the way to rehearsals is great. Sometimes in Leeds it feels like you're in a creative ghetto, we were a bit odd for being a professional band. I was made to feel weird for practising in a basement five days a week rather than going out to Bondi Beach or Walkabout or wherever. And it's really liberating in London to be with people who actually were encouraging and made you feel like this was a normal thing, you know."

 

 

Musically you've mentioned it will be more of an electronically-based affair, was that an eye-opening experience for you recording-wise?

 

Tom: "Well with the last record I think we tried to incorporate some elements of how electronic music was constructed in terms of how you can play it as a band, whereas this time we're going a little deeper into that. We've just fallen in love with pad sounds, smoother sounds, texture and atmosphere - things that are impossible to do as a straight guitar band, so it was something we wanted to approach. The record is quite personalised, all the vocals are going to be singing quite close, it's mixed quite intimately. So it'll be that up against the kind of depersonalising effect of the electronics. There are a lot more overdubs as well; a lot of the songs were built as band arrangements and then taken apart and built up again as studio arrangements. So there is gonna be a bit of reloading and re-establishing, a bit of learning to do."

 

And do you have a final track-listing sorted?

 

Tom: "We've got quite a short album, that's how we like it but there was definitely a lot of material. I think the mixing and remixing potential for this are endless, there are a lot of sounds on the record which are buried which could be really prominent, it's very carefully arranged. It's more dense in a way. There were a few decorations and everything but really the last record was really just the sound of us in a room whereas that's not necessarily the case this time around. But it does sound like we've got about ten albums each."

 

There's always been a sense of purpose about you as a band, has that only increased now you've established an audience with Two Dancers?

 

Hayden: "Absolutely, the sense of empowerment is massive, the sense of having people listen and the feeling of responsibility, it feels like something to rise to rather than be overwhelmed by. It makes our jobs easier, because we do speak in code - we want people to come to us and to understand us on our terms rather than this ridiculous sense of having to dumb things down. There's this preconception that people need things to be simplified for them - they don't. The new one could go down like the first one, with a damp whimper of confusion, but that's something which is out of our control, it's not something we can be too concerned about. But I hope this record does well, because I need to do this job and I'd be fucking useless at anything else by now. You just have to have faith, as George Michael would say."