Jubalooza by Arella Ho

Issue 01 spring summer 2015 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; lykke li

jubalooza The Magazine Jubalooza is a biannual magazine dedicated to music and design. Featuring ambitious journalism and interviews of a particular artist, the magazine celebrates inspirational, international artists through their distinctive combination of personality and warmth. Jubalooza offers a fresh perspective on music that is focused on a personal level â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the way these artists actually think and make music.

01 article one

Published by Arella Ho ÂŠ2015 All Rights Reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other storage and retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Pg 4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 5 Lykke Li in Coachella

03 interview Pg 10 – 11 Finding Inspiration In Heartbreak

02 article two Pg 6 – 9 Getting To The Heart Of Lykke Li

ly k k e l i i n c oac hel l a

L Y K

K L I

Lykke Li is a maximalist who presents as a minimalist. In live performances, the Swedish musician uses a monochrome set – it’s all black everything. That allows the audience to get lost in her aching vocals and ethereally bright white light show

Although Lykke Li announced a temporary hiatus from performing in January, the Swedish purveyor of heartbreaking indie pop couldn’t stay away for too long. Watch the artist crash and nearly burn in the video for “Never Gonna Love Again”. Li tells Jubalooza about the inspiration for the somber song and video, “Loneliness and heartbreak follow you everywhere and they are loudest right after the lights go out and the crowds quiet”. “Here’s an intimate glimpse of how it can be to live your dream whilst stuck in your dream. In the lonely wolf hour, the night becomes your stage, the stars your audience, the rain your memories.” Following the release of I Never Learn in May last year, Li toured the globe with her sobering, confessional songs. For the North American leg in the fall, she had been joined by Mapei, a fellow Swedish pop artist who released her debut album, Hey Hey, in September. “It is insanely symbolic to me as she’s been my idol ever since I saw her the first time when I was 17,” said Li in a statement prior to their tour. Li announced her live hiatus via an Instagram post. The singer revealed that she wanted to spend time focusing on her health so she could return to the stage stronger than before. Coachella was her first performance since the announcement. She returned to Coachella on April 10 for the first time since 2009. As expected, her set was worth the wait. The 29-yearold treated the Mojave tent to a typically raw and emotional performance that showcased both her haunting vocals and powerful stage presence. She mostly stuck to songs from critically acclaimed 2014 LP I Never Learn, casting a spell with her melancholy-drenched break-up anthems. So in case you did not head to The 2015 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, where Lykke Li performed, the videos on Coachella’s youtube account gives a glimpse of it. Couple her monastic drama with the fact that she covered Drake, another arguable maximalist-minimalist, and the track becomes compulsively listenable.

Coachella Repaying Sunday headliner Drake for remixing her song “Little Bit” on his So Far Gone mixtape, Lykke Li covers “Hold On, We’re Goin’ On” during her entrancing set, turning his R&B jam into something sadder and more tribal. The Swedish indie-pop artist has been covering the song during her European tour, but her rendition sounded even more provocative at Coachella. Bathed in an ethereal yellow glow, Lykke Li entralled the crowd in the Mojave tent. Wearing a glittery black suit with bell-bottoms and bell sleeves, she launched into her song “No Rest for the Wicked.” The glitter on her eyes and face reflected brightly through the thick fog she performed in, her voice backed up by a synthesizer, percussion and backup singer. The audience followed along, yelling each word to her songs “Just Like a Dream” and dancing other through her relaxed performance. The lights changed color, from bright oranges and yellows to a grey blue before Lykke Li sang a haunting rendition of Drake’s “Hold On We’re Going Home.” Again, the audience sang each word. The excitement only grew when Lykke Li performed her hit song “Little Bit” and the audience danced and sang along. Through the rest of her performance, Lykke Li used a drumstick to keep the tempo, often hitting it against her mic stand or waving it through the air. “This song goes out to those people who think they’ll never get over someone,” she said before singing “Never Gonna Love Again.” The song prompted the couples in the audience to hold each other tight. “She was pretty great,” said Alondra Ceja, 16 from Indio. “Everyone was really into it.”

GETTI NG TO THE HEAR T O F LY K K E L I

Ge tting t o t he he a r t o f

Ly k k e L i Lykke Li has been in Stockholm almost nine months, her longest stay in years, and she’s dying to get out. She’s been working on her second album with Bjorn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn and John, because he has a new baby and needs to stay put. Li’s apartment is a sparsely furnished one-room flat in the fashionable Södermalm district, its sole contents a bed, a small table with two chairs, a stereo, a mirror, a cowskin rug and an upright black piano. On top of the piano there are books by Paulo Coelho, Joan Didion and Leonard Cohen, a photo of her dad in India with long hair and a beard, and a random assortment of Polaroids from her promotional shoot the day before lean on a vinyl copy of Prince’s Lovesexy. In the photos she is dressed as several different characters: gold-chained tough, red-bobbed vixen and stern sophisticate, among others. Right now, though, she is pacing in a big black sweater and bare legs, working the phones to get a last minute costume made for the video of her first single. She will be shot on green screen and superimposed over kaleidoscopic images from an obscure B-movie about Amazon women spliced together by a Swedish video artist who normally specializes in political conspiracy films. Even in the current frenzied moments, it’s clear she is in complete control of everything she does and says, whether on record or in real life, and is determined to show everyone who she really is. Here’s what she is not: a Swedish pop star, a puppet, a victim, an innocent.

GETTI NG TO THE HEAR T O F LY K K E L I

Lykke Li is not afraid to play these roles when they suit her, especially if it means subverting the image that most held of her after her debut album, Youth Novels. She was cute, blonde and coquettish, and at times, her songs sounded more like timid whispers than the expressions of a full-grown woman, probably because she hadn’t yet become one. In the four years since she recorded that album, Li has toured endlessly, made it through a crushing breakup that drove her to write new songs and learned, as Yttling says, that “the world cannot be conquered on a whisper.” The

new album, Wounded Rhymes, reflects her maturity in ways both obvious and not. She is really singing now, in a clear and emotive, honeyed purr, and her lyrics speak of tragic love, longing and disappointment. The music she has written with Yttling is tougher and more muscular, less about light melodies than forceful rhythm. She wanted it to sound like “Link Wray meets Ethiopiques meets The Shangri-Las,” raw and passionate, and it does. But beneath these outward transformations is a growing artistic force, a woman who seems capable of everything she puts her

I’ve been exhausted. You just tour the same record for so long. I didn’t want to do anything. And then I went to LA, and I rented this little cabin. I bought an autoharp. I was just sitting totally in a cabin with candles and an autoharp and being like, I’m so heartbroken. I didn’t have a driver’s license, so I was just walking around, and I had so much time to think about the record and to build a plan. I just felt so strong, and that I was on a path and I couldn’t turn back, no matter how painful it is. So I came back to Sweden and I’m like, I’m going to make the master record, and I’m going to make everything right that I did wrong the last time. I came back with a vision, I gathered all the band. We were going to have four day sessions in Atlantis Studios. We were just going to do it live, Bob Dylan style. And then I completely freaked. It was too much for me. I had a total meltdown in the studio. I was in tears, like choking, I couldn’t sing. I was like, Oh my god I can’t do this, it’s too early. I’ve had to a lot of my darlings and be like, This is my vision, this is my dream, this is my intention, but this is reality, this what I have and this is who I am right now. I’m quite young, I guess, so I’m still searching for ways to live, trying out stuff.

get in touch with people. I would just be floating around, doing really stupid stuff. And I would just feel like if something happened right now, I was just rootless. It was scary. When everything was done, like I’m not going to do one more show, just leave me alone for awhile, I just realized that I was in the exact same situation personally that I was when it all started, like when I was 17. I was like, Man, I need to change some things. It’s been a really painful process. I don’t want to be like, This album has been like therapy – it’s not really, I go to therapy, too. But it was a really painful start to the album. The whole process has been killing me. I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve been manic, like waking up in the middle of the night like, It’s not good enough.

I feel very suffocated when I’m around people all the time. I really had to learn real early that I couldn’t count on anybody for anything, so I’ve been a loner all my life, like really strong, because nobody’s going to give me shit. I’ve been too much like that, I don’t trust people and I don’t depend on them. Almost cold, maybe. But now I’ve been experiencing not only relationships, but friends and people, and I’ve been learning that it’s okay to miss them. When you’re always touring it’s going to be really painful if you miss people all the time. So you just have friends everywhere, you can’t be too attached. This life is bad for relationships. But I’ve learned to try to depend on a few people, stay in touch with people more. When I was in America for a very long time, I didn’t talk to anybody here, so they’re like, She’s gone. I can be here, and nobody knows I’m here, I’m like a leaf in the wind. I would stay in New York and LA, and I wouldn’t

It’s all very personal. Although I’ve been so busy and not having time, I just got involved in this really interesting situation, a love kind of thing that I never expected. I always had the feeling, all my life, I’m always so brokenhearted. It happened to me once when I was 19, 20. I was like, Yeah this is shit, but this guy couldn’t hurt me that bad. How could this one person hurt me that much? So I went to this psychic, and she said, “You were born with a broken heart.” And I was like, Really? Because I knew that. So I’m born with a broken heart, and then somebody breaks my heart again, and then when I think there’s no way I can get brokenhearted again, it really happens again, like super happens again. I put up all these shields, and then I was willing to jump. I’ll run for it, because love is dangerous, when it’s real it’s dangerous. And then I crash. So when I was in Bermuda, on a beach, on the water, and I was really sad, like, I hate myself I want to die, I just felt like the most stupid person ever. How could I be so selfish? At the same time, every man’s suffering is their own suffering, so I thought, Wow, I’m suffering from rich kid’s blues I think. There’s a few basic needs that everybody needs, and if one of them is not fulfilled, you don’t feel good. You know, food, water, shelter, but also a place of belonging and a home, and a feeling that you mean something special to somebody and

mind to, which could anything. She may have outgrown Stockholm, but she was never really from here anyway, a child expat of two cult musician parents who decided to move the family to Portugal when she was only seven on a mission to live a freer existence and traveled frequently to seek enlightenment. The instability was tough on her, but Li is better off for the challenge. There is a Swedish word that has no direct English translation, but roughly means that every person should strive toward the middle, never be too ambitious or too satisfied. It explains their appearance of

cool perfection to the outside world, whether in regards to pop music or perfect style. Before a Swede can make it big, she must pass through a gauntlet that lifts her up while gently holding her down. Lykke Li sidestepped instead, and it’s her imperfections that make her exceptional. Over meatballs and lingonberries, she explained how she got here.

somebody means something special to you, a connection. No matter how rich you are, if you don’t have that, it’s the same thing as being a homeless kid with nothing to eat. You need to be close to another heart. So as selfish as it sounds, being on a beach in Bermuda, if you still don’t have a home or someone that’s there, it’s painful. And also the feeling that I think a lot of people suffer from, that we have everything, there’s so much going on, but there’s this numbness. And I was starting to fantasize, like, what’s death? Where is that? Is that a place that could be better? Like there’s a place where the highs won’t hurt, and it won’t come down again, it was just going to be high. So that song “I Know Places,” it’s basically like, follow me there, because I know this place where it’s high all the time, it’s on the other side. So it’s a dark thing, although it doesn’t sound like it. A lot of it is almost like a siren of death. I’ve been having this ocean feeling a lot, a lot of the songs talk about water and rivers, like where does that river lead? And it’s good, it just flows and then you die.

man to me, he’s going to treat me good. That’s hard to recognize, when you’re standing in front of a good person. You have to be ready for that, a love that’s not immediate, that’s just warm and it’s just there. I realize there are different stages – love, lust and infatuation, and that’s the most dangerous one that I experience, like obsession. It feels so much, but it’s bullshit. And then love, which is something that is like a warmth between you. I went into this record walking around New York, crying. I went to the movies by myself, like smoking inside and they’re like, You have to go out and I’m like, Unnnhhh nooo. And now my record is done, and it’s really strange because I have to revisit old things. Right now I’m fine. I’ve never ever been fine. I’m just saying this now, I’m fine now. Who knows what will happen in a week, but today it’s fine.

If you listen to somebody, you can hear their secrets. What is her biggest secret, her biggest wound? I say everything, but at the same time, that’s like a sacred space. I wouldn’t say that in real life, when I’m hanging out with somebody. But I’m not interested in doing anything else with my music. When I’m really putting myself on the line, that’s the only time it resonates with me. I don’t know any other way. If I’m going to be doing a lot of records really quickly, I guess this is not the way, because I can’t do that all the time. So maybe my next record’s not going to come in forever, like ten years or something. Or maybe I’ll do it right away. You have to find your wound at the time. And you can’t just have wound, wound, wound all the time and then sunshine, because then the wound gets even bigger. It’s hard when you’re used to love being so dramatic, so many obstacles, but it’s so painful and it’s so destructive. I had to teach myself, the next guy I’m going to have is going to be fucking a good

“ Lykke Li sidestepped instead, and it’s her imperfections that make her exceptional”.

“ You have to be ready for that, a love that’s not immediate, that’s just warm and it’s just there”. I’ve been working for a year and a half in my head and in my soul. This has been like the inhale before the exhale. I’ve discovered some things about me. I used to party a lot on tour and do all kinds of things, but then I got really sick and I had to go on this cleanse. I couldn’t drink alcohol, eat any meat or sugar. I was on this health binge. So I did that at the same time I was in LA riding the bus, and it was cool. But it didn’t work, because I was emotionally jetlagged. I had no energy. I just got even more sick and more tired, and was just like, Oh my god, there’s no end to this. I’m so fucking old and I’m so young. The way I think I should handle it is just to have a lot of fun. Like having a good laugh or having amazing fucking sex with somebody is worth more than a fucking health cleanse or therapy. So I’ve just been having fun instead, and now I’m feeling so much better. I’m back on track, ready to be destroyed again.

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In

Inspirati Heartbreak The first time I interviewed Lykke Li was in 2008. I flew to Stockholm to spend a week following her around for a feature story that was to be published just as her debut album, Youth Novels, was seeing release in the States. What struck me most about Lykke at the time was her absolute seriousness in regards to her music, coupled with her ambivalence about being considered a pop star. In the years since, even though much has changed in her life, her sophomore album, 2011’s Wounded Rhymes, made her something of a bonafide indie pop celebrity. Her attitude toward making music remains seemingly unchanged. As far as her career goes, Lykke still leads with her heart, which meant eschewing almost all traditionally “pop” notions when it came to the making her forthcoming third album. A breakup album in the classic “rip out your heart and throw it on the ground” vein, I Never Learn is both epic and incredibly intimate. It also speaks closely to the relative terrors of being in your late twenties and what it means to be emotionally adult. I had the chance to sit down with Lykke during the annual Coachella festival and discuss the making of the record and how she feels about entering this new phase of her career.

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In I heard about half of the new songs a few days ago, but is the record now totally done?

Yeah, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really heavy. Beautiful, but heavy.

Inspirati Heartbreak

It’s a real thing. Twenty-eight was the worst year in my life, probably. It’s the mid-mid-life crisis.

It’s a time when you can’t really blame everything on youth anymore.

The first time I interviewed Lykke Li was in 2008. I flew to Stockholm to spend a week following her around for a feature story that was to be published just as her debut album, Youth Novels, was seeing release in the States. What struck me most about Lykke at the time was her absolute seriousness in regards to her music, coupled with her ambivalence about being considered a pop star. In the years since, even though much has changed in her life, her sophomore album, 2011’s Wounded Rhymes, made her something of a bonafide indie pop celebrity. Her attitude toward making music remains seemingly unchanged. As far as her career goes, Lykke still leads with her heart, which meant eschewing almost all traditionally “pop” notions when it came to the making her forthcoming third album. A breakup album in the classic “rip out your heart and throw it on the ground” vein, I Never Learn is both epic and incredibly intimate. It also speaks closely to the relative terrors of being in your late twenties and what it means to be emotionally adult. I had the chance to sit down with Lykke during the annual Coachella festival and discuss the making of the record and how she feels about entering this new phase of her career.

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In It’s that time when you’re out of school and into whatever your career is supposed to be and it’s the first time for a lot of people where it’s like, “Is this it? Is this what it is?” It’s a real existential crisis time for a lot people when they realize that thing they’ve been looking to try to do, they’re doing it, and they’re asking if this is what “happy” is supposed to be like.

Inspirati Heartbreak Once the songs started happening and the record started presenting itself, did it feel like a catharsis of some kind?

Why is that? Is it choosing the wrong people?

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In I know it feels like a cliché at times, but there really isn’t a more universal experience to make art about.

Inspirati Heartbreak Like it stresses your working relationships with people?

Was your label cool about it? Did they anxiously want to hear what you were doing?

The songs I’ve heard are these big, beautiful ballads. Is that pretty indicative of the aesthetic of the record?

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In It’s been very interesting hearing the records over the years and talking to you about music making. In some ways these songs are the most emotionally delicate but also the most intensely powerful. I remember when we first met and we were talking about how the songs were made for Youth Novels. You kept saying you weren’t really a singer and that you were just sort of figuring it out as you went along. But it seems like with these new songs there’s a real control of the voice that maybe wasn’t always there before.

Inspirati Heartbreak You mentioned that you’ve been doing movies in Sweden.

So is LA home now?

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In Having cycled through the heartbreak experience and writing about it, do you feel better? Is it still a really raw thing?

ion

I NTERVI EW : FI NDI NG I NS P I R ATI O N I N HEAR TB R EAK

Finding In