Cover of Sondre Lerche's new album, "Two Way Monologue," which is due out next month. You can get it from Amazon.
When was the last time I wrote fanatically about my favorite rocker boys, like I used to do on my slightly flaky
mypaper page? I don't know.
(The
Oyster? Nah, that doesn't count. Read the question again, darling, it says "fanatically.")
Alright, let's cut to the chase. I love this guy.
His name is
Sondre Lerche, a 21-year-old Bergenian(?), who has recorded two delightful and tasteful albums. His debut,
Faces Down (recorded in 2000, but released in 2001/2002 after he finished school), is fresh and full of promises. I'm not going to do the reviewer thing and be all snobbish here, but I have to tell you how beautiful it is.
Lerche made a good decision when he made "
Dead Passengers" the opening track, because it simply wins you over. It's soothing and cantabile, but with an edge - it stole my heart at that very moment I first laid my ears to it. The upbeat "Sleep on Needles" is more than just upbeat, it has a velvet touch to it. "Modern Nature," one of my favorite tracks on this album, conjures up romance and warmth and brings some of my very personal sweet memories back in front of my eyes, which is followed by "Virtue and Wine," another proof of this amazing talent. The orchestration throughout the album is done with much youthful grace, it swells and fills the space you're in like you could swim in it.
As some of you already know, I'm not big on the "flowy" type of music. I expect something light, but it's also supposed to be solid enough for me to jump around on. Yes, I know what Nadia's going to say, "That's why modern technology is for you." And modern
is the ideal word when one's to describe Lerche's work. No, it's not Schoenberg, John Cage or industrial noise as you might think (with a terrified look perhaps); it's the minimalism, lyricism and humor that lies within. It's the sound of the generation who grew up listening to Beach Boys, but later discovered old-school rock and fell madly in love with it. It's the sound of a generation who grew up watching
the Smurfs, while some of the girls thinking
Alex P. Keaton* (played by Michael J. Fox, who's still easily one of my favorite comedians) must be the best boyfriend a girl could ask for (I was one of those lasses). It's the sound of a generation who think it's okay to listen to A-ha right after a track by Dylan or, say, Bowie even. The 80's. In fact, I am a child of the 80's who doesn't think the 80's was cool. (Mind you, my childhood was fab.) Alright....I know I got a bit carried away. But all this is to say that this boy makes me somehow proud
er of the vintage year in which I was born. I shall be happy if this is to be the future of pop.
A friend told me this music reminded him of
Rufus Wainwright, who is also very adventurous when it comes to music making. He's right, even though I didn't realize this before. The two share similar sensitivity - which is probably why I love Lerche too. Rufus, to me, is more appropriately a night-time thing, now I'm glad to have found my day-time companion in the young Norwegian who knows how to play guitar. If I were to make a time capsule, mine would consist of Lerche's albums for sure, so that my descendants would know what their (great)grandma - who seemed a groupie-wannabe but actually wanted more - was really like, behind her not-so-current collection of Dylan, Simon and the Beatles.
Speaking of groupies, I was just thinking, as I read the latest journal entry on Lerche's website, "I could be his girl." (I'm not even sure if he likes girls, that way.) Simply because he said, "Scarlett Johansson is nice and now I want to see it [
Lost in Translation] again." I'm certainly not blonde, with a very different body, but I sometimes feel like that, if she's what I saw in the trailer. Who said I can't be his girl?
Then I laughed at my silliness, and the woman that contains it.
*I read from a recent online survey (sent to me by Milla) that Alex is still voted as "
Best TV Boyfriend" (yes, I know it's plain silly) after all these boring years without
the Keatons. Much rejoicing.
PS. You know how long I've held myself back because I wanted to write this so bad? I guess gushing over music men/women is what it's meant to be for me...
