Jens Lekman- Night Falls Over Kortedala

And from streaming too! This is really bizarre.

The really short, less than a week, notice makes me think it is sample based, in reaction to a threatened lawsuit or cease and desist, or something.

Great album though, a shame to see it lost to history.

Huh...if it's a sample, why not just remove that one track? Unless it says a "that compromises the integrity of the album, fuck it, take the whole thing down" situation.

I have a complicated relationship to the past. Everyone who writes and has had some form of success does. When my album Oh You’re So Silent Jens was taken down ten years ago due to sample issues, I almost felt a relief. The past had become too heavy. It's hard to explain but it used to bother me when someone said they liked something I’d done in the past. It was like... Imagine you’re 40, like me, and someone said ”I saw a photo of you when you were 21, you looked really good back then”. That's a nice thing to say but it can also unintentionally translate to ”you don’t look that good anymore”. And it feels the same way with a song, especially if you’re still trying to write new songs. So the album was gone and I thought that would make me feel better but the effect was much more extreme than I thought. Because of streaming and the way we've been listening to music the last ten years it was like the album had never existed. For any new listener that album is not even a gap in the record collection. It has no absence, there's no void, unless you know exactly where it was supposed to have been. And over time these old songs have become like new songs. Several times after playing Black Cab live, a young person has come up and said ”I liked that new song you played called Black Cab, when is that coming out?”.
So during this pandemic I worked on restoring a lot of my old recordings from this era to be able to re-release them. Some songs had to be re-recorded from scratch as I’d recorded over the original tapes. Others could be remixed or left as they were. Unreleased demos were dug up and finished. If I was Bartlebooth I guess I would be in the jigsaw puzzle phase. It’s been fascinating, like I’ve had a compassionate dialogue between my current self and my 21 year old self. I think I look a lot better today than when I was 21 but I could write some pretty good tunes back then. It’s made me like myself more. It’s made me understand where I am. To know where you are you need to know where you came from.
Sometimes I’ve fantasized about including a clause in my will about having all traces of myself erased once I’m dead. Placing my songs in a detergent solution and leaving nothing but white sheets behind. But that’s nonsense, I know. Pure narcissism in disguise. What I leave to the world belongs to the world. I donate it to you like I donate my body to science. I will from now on carry a donor card in my wallet that says ”After my death - any song I’ve ever written and anything I’ve ever posted on my blog - may be used for the benefit of others. Take this old flesh, learn something from it. Carve in it. Tear it to pieces. Delete it if you want or frame it in a museum. Read my growth rings like a tree, my musical calcifications. Laugh with me and laugh at me. I was a human. No more, no less."

https://www.jenslekman.com/records/smalltalk.htm

Huh. Not going to begrudge him his wishes, but I wish his new version could coexist with the original, not replace it.

Night Falls Over Kortedala (Taylor's Version)

there's a big difference between re-recording & re-releasing oh you're so silent jens, which was already unavailable, and removing night falls over kortedala from sale & streaming to do the same (if that is indeed what's happening, there's no confirmation there)

Yeah, I missed that he was talking about re-recording Silent there. Maybe this is a hint that he is planning to do the same for Night Falls?

I honestly hadn't realized Silent was gone either though.

looking forward to the newly finished unreleased demos from the vault though

but it's a bit disappointing because this likely means there's not anything properly new on the way anytime soon and he works at such a glacial pace

I've certainly noticed the absence of Silent from streaming because every year or so I want to foist "Maple Leaves" on people. (Not sure how much mileage I'd get out of a non-infringing rearrangement of that sampletastic thing, come to think of it. Maybe I'll find out.)

god i love this album. spun it for the first time in a while last night and had somehow forgotten how big the backbeat was on some of these tracks–"danceable" isn't the first word i think of when i think of jens, but it certainly fits here, especially on some of those tracks on the album's second half.

love the way he plays with tempo on the sped-up sections of "hallelujah" and "drive-in bingo" (which has always been my personal favorite).

secretly is streaming the album live right now (for the last time????): youtube.com/watch?v=jtHvuY-wXys

Guess I should have taken this seriously and tried to buy an LP. I see they're all sold out and the only one for sale on discogs is $275? It's still on spotify but I'm assuming that won't last long.

Anyone selling on discogs right now is specifically trying to profit off of this news.

btw night falls over kortedala still lives online in unlisted form at that link i shared above (until they wise up and take it down)

Been removed from his Bandcamp page but still shows as a purchase in my app/feed, so there's that...

When I saw this news I thought “good thing I got it on vinyl” but I was wrong! I was thinking of the compilation (which I adore)

I love him for the casual Life a Users Manual reference.

wait is he really re-recording oh you're so silent jens...

it's made pretty clear in his blog post linked above, says he wants to re-release it but has to avoid the sample issues that have kept it unavailable for the past decade & has recorded over some of the original tapes so some of it needs to be re-recorded from scratch

I was under the impression that Jens had already re-recorded various samples after their initial release... it could be my imagination but I thought that "Black Cab" in its original pre-Oh You're So Silent Jens form had a full-tilt Left Banke sample

I wish he could just get those samples cleared! The re-interpretative quality of those early songs was so much a part of the enjoyment

you're not wrong about "black cab" and i think "maple leaves," both of which had a few alternate versions with slightly-altered instrumentals

there were two different versions of "maple leaves" on oh you're so silent jens with some slightly different samples iirc, not sure if there were any others out there

i think the left banke sample is still there in the version of "black cab" on the album too

no idea which samples were at fault for the album getting taken down either

^ not "Oh You're So Silent Jens", I don't even think it's harpsichord on the album, sounds like a mandolin or something. What a perfect song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PojymCxpb4

ah here's the version without the sample

"Black Cab" is a magical song

Black Cab might be my favorite song. Thank god it is on youtube.

I really am saddened by the removal of Night Falls.

this must be what the opposite of hallelujah feels like

I wasn't imagining it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpgkG4TIyvE

GOD this song

well maybe i am, maybe i am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roMN1t4amXY

this is a charming performance of the opposite of hallelujah to hold people over until night falls is available again

the album still lives online at this unlisted link! (for now)

youtube.com/watch?v=jtHvuY-wXys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMAml2wdwQ4

sweet

surprised i couldn't find more footage of you together. Great memories of the Toronto Great Hall show.

he’s just posted ‘maple leaves - out tomorrow’ on his ig story

https://open.spotify.com/album/44Wa9N8w6M2VFRddtbnbX3

not just maple leaves, the entire oh you're so silent jens remake has gotten a surprise release!

now titled the cherry trees are still in blossom, it adds some interludes, a recording of "eureka" which looks to be a track he played live but never released, a new version of "julie" titled "the cherry trees are still in blossom", and an acoustic version of black cab, but removes the second version of "maple leaves"

hmm really do not know how to feel about the new "maple leaves", he's reworked it as an acoustic ballad with strings. it's gorgeous but as a replacement for the original and the only version widely available, it's totally disappointing. if this was a bonus track i'd love it but where's a version that's anything like the original! where are those propulsive drums!

new "black cab" is wonderful though! slightly different but totally does it justice

oh crazy! i just posted the julie video on another thread, didnt realise the whole album was out. listening now...

hmm showing up as all grayed-out tracks for me. Are you all in europe?

australia

his voice on the new black cab seems weird?

ufo OTM re: "Maples Leaves". Though it was always going to be a high-degree-of-difficulty move when the original versions were like the canonical How To Fruitfully Sample Stuff For Pop Songs, non-hip-hop/dance music division lol. (In my tiny brain anyway.)

i don't have any doubt he would have been capable of suitably recreating "maple leaves" though, even if the arrangement had to be tweaked a bit.

kind of a weird project where some of the tracks are barely changed from the original (only a tiny sample at the start of "sky phenomenon" removed otherwise it's the original recording) but a lot of tracks are totally re-recorded so there's pretty wild fluctuation in recording fidelity track-to-track. think he said it was due to some of the original master tapes being available but others were lost or too sample-dependent, but it's means it's not quite here or there

his voice on the new black cab seems weird?

yeah it sounds a little deeper, might just be the passing of 19 years idk

wow the new "black cab" ... never heard a version of this song that wasn't absolutely perfect

the new "maple leaves" is perfect in its own way i made peace with its existence before the second verse

"the cherry trees in blossom" is maybe the best thing here, easily the best version of that song & the new lyrics posing it as a sequel to the original "julie" are a nice touch

https://boomkat.com/products/the-linden-trees-are-still-in-blossom

reworked Night Falls Over Kortedala out in two weeks too!

it has 6 tracks added on the end:
Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death - Scout Niblett cover for a compilation
Our Last Swim in the Ocean - demo included on pre-order bonus EP Kalendervägen 113.D
A Little Lost - Arthur Russell cover for a compilation
Radio NRJ - B-side to "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo"
The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom - probably a sequel track like "The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom" but I don't think there's an obvious lyrical link
When I'm Swimming - no idea what this is either

Finally a streamable version of “I saw her in the anti war demonstration” I love that song, can’t really hear a difference on this version and the original one, but it’s been years since I last heard it.

No idea why he didn’t become one of the most important and popular figures in indie pop/rock. There’s so many brilliant songs in here.

"i saw her in the anti-war demonstration" is one that i'm not sure has been changed or re-recorded at all

it seems like he probably was pretty well-positioned to reach a higher level of success after night falls over kortedala but that didn't eventuate due to him taking 5 years to release i know what love isn't, which got a relatively underwhelming reception. he's also just been not very prolific in terms of actual albums since nfok. his output is a bit higher if you look at all the other weird little project he's done like postcards, but it's still not that substantial.

& he still puts out a bunch of stuff in weird ways that ensures that no one except the true heads ever hear it. looking at his website just now i found this wonderful 8 minute track he put out in 2019 exclusively as an mp3 download there.

http://jenslekman.com/IWantToBeInvaded.html

there's all sorts of other stuff... "wwjd" and "i remember" which were exclusive to a mix he made on soundcloud... he really needs to put out a rarities comp!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyQIen0MRSU

still love "wwjd"