Switch to the mobile version of this page.

The Measure

Archives | RSS | Tips | Twitter

« Police in Riot Gear Arrest Dozens a… | NYFF 2011: The Descendants »

Monday, October 17, 2011

Music L TV: Sweden's Loney Dear Strums His Heart Strings

Posted by Sydney Brownstone on Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:32 PM

It's been a while since we had one of these in the office, but here we are with another installment of The L Magazine Presents, a series where we invite bands we like to come on in and play music we like. Loney Dear, a.k.a. Emil Svanängen, just came out with his second album on Polyvinyl Records, (his first major release, Loney Noir, came out on Sub Pop in 2007), but he's had a passion for multitrack home recording since he was a wee slip of 5 or 6 years old growing up in Sweden. After finding the optimal set up in our office, which meant taping a microphone to Gary, The L Mag's patron wooden goose, Loney Dear played "My Heart" and "Violent," two tracks off of his latest Hall Music, which came out earlier this month.

Check out "My Heart" and "Violent" after the jump, and we dare you not to fantasize about using them as a soundtrack for a future cruise throughout the glacial fjords. Well, maybe Loney Dear's pained howls and delicate, spacious guitar loops sound more like getting broken up with on a cruise through the glacial fjords, à la Bon Iver's winter angst. Perhaps, then, listening to Loney Dear is more about the feeling of going on a cruise throughout the glacial fjords, spending hours in awe of natural beauty and the fragility of our ecosystem, only to realize that the ice caps are melting and we're all romantically, royally screwed.

Dammit. Where were we? Oh, right. Loney Dear's expressive, precise melancholy after the jump. Not going to think about the ice caps. Definitely not freaking out about the ice caps.