Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes

"This Swedish indie-pop warbler has often done a lot with a little — consider the suggestive wisps of melody all over 'Youth Novels' (LL/Atlantic), her 2008 debut — but she’s no minimalist, at least not anymore. 'Wounded Rhymes,' her follow-up on the same label, has thumping drums, Farfisa organs, girl-group vocal harmonies and darkly pealing guitars. It also has songs of desolate stoicism and disconsolate fury. Lykke Li wrote most of them alone in Los Angeles, on the mend from a broken relationship, and she put a lot of hurt into her lyrics. 'All my love is unrequited,' she wails in one Phil Spector-ish set piece. 'Sadness is my boyfriend,' she declares in another. But there’s steel in her delivery. When she spits out the phrase 'I’m your prostitute,' on 'Get Some,' she’s asserting control over her own exploitation. Speaking of which, this album has already yielded a cottage industry of remixes, including an especially brooding entry from Tyler the Creator" (Nate Chinen, "Sad Out West, Rocking Out in Brooklyn," New York Times, 3/4/11).
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