Lykke Li returned last month, sadder and sexier than ever before with with “hard rain” and “deep end,” as well as “utopia” earlier this month.
The Swedish dream is at it again with another double dose of dope beats and tearful storytelling ahead of the release of so sad, so sexy next week (June 8): “two nights” featuring 24-year-old Portland-bred rapper Aminé and “sex money feelings die.”
“Two nights in a row, where’d you go? I’ve been smoking…”
The first song, produced by Jeff Bhasker (Lana Del Rey, Natalia Kills), Malay and Jonny Coffer (with additional production from Skrillex, surprisingly enough), is a lonesome, accusatory piano-led cry in the midnight hour for a lover who hasn’t come home. It’s a mournful and minimal groove, until Aminé hops on at the tail-end, bringing the trap hi-hats along with him as he hits back harshly in his defense. (“I’m never bummy or scummy / You’re paranoid like a bunny.“) She remains unconvinced.
“I wanted to hear how it would feel from the man’s side, hearing those accusations,” she explained to Zane Lowe of adding Aminé’s verse to the track.
“Late night, call you in the late night / Trade love for a one night / Two pills and a red wine / So I go blind, now I don’t mind the words that you don’t say / No love when you hold me, no call in the next day, it’s a one way…”
The second song, produced by Malay & DJ Dahi with vocal production by Kid Harpoon, turns substance-fueled hook-ups with emotionless former flames into a nihilist trap anthem.
But why all the bleakness, you might be wondering? The backstory ought to help shed some light on all the darkness.
“I don’t know if many people know what actually happened in my life the last two years. I had a baby, and then shortly after my mom got diagnosed with cancer and then she passed away in the summer…and then you know, I had maybe some problems in my relationship, et cetera,” she explained to Zane Lowe on Beats 1 on Tuesday (May 29).
“Because it’s such a really difficult thing to deal with, my mom passing, that I really was like ‘okay, I’m just going to make the album.'”
The rest of Lykke’s escape opus, which is shaping up to be one of the year’s best, arrives next Friday.
“two nights” and “sex money feelings die” were released on May 29. (iTunes)
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Photo credit: Chloe Le Drezen