The Linden Trees Are Still Blossom in Bloomington, MN

Though not his debut, Swedish indie auteur
Jens Lekman
's 2007 sophomore effort
Night Falls Over Kortedala
felt like his first fully formed statement. It was with that album that
Lekman
's wide-eyed approach to sampling and his shockingly vulnerable songwriting style first reached a perfect equilibrium. His grab-bag of styles and borrowed sounds incorporated disco, doo wop, perky drum breaks, and sweet Baroque pop orchestrations, like if
Beck
had suddenly gone more twee and started writing songs about lifelong devotion or slicing avocados. In March of 2022,
discontinued the album (long out of print physically) from streaming platforms, and a few weeks later replaced it with
The Linden Trees Are Still in Blossom
.
Linden Trees
is one of two albums
used to revisit, partially re-record, and otherwise reconfigure older work, both expanding the original track listings and mixing in new versions of some songs while keeping others as they were. "Kanske Aer Jag Kaer I Dig" gets a completely new life, with the sampled street corner doo wop vocals re-recorded in new arrangements by new voices. Likewise, the piano loop that led "I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You" is less warped, and the production is far clearer than the reverb-heavy lo-fi original. For the most part, however, the revamped material isn't too wildly removed from the way the songs were presented of
. Some of
's best-loved tunes like "Your Arms Around Me" and "The Opposite of Hallelujah" seem mostly untouched. The most exciting additions of
come with the previously unreleased bonus tracks. The spare handclaps and piano chords of
Scout Niblett
cover "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death" build into
Beirut
-esque percussion and a huge group chorus singing joyfully about the inevitability of death, moves that would have fit perfectly into the indie landscape of 2007. A dreamy kalimba cover of
Arthur Russell
's "A Little Lost" is also a highlight.
doesn't necessarily improve on the spring-like wonder of
as much as it reflects back on those songs and updates some perspectives that have changed in the ensuing years, becoming the musical equivalent of contacting an old friend you haven't talked to in years out of the blue. ~ Fred Thomas