Loney, Dear, Loney, Noir

I’ve had a bit of a hard time with the music that’s been coming out of Scandinavia (primarily Sweden, actually) for the past year or so. Whether it’s Jens Lekman, Sondre Lerche, Frida Hyvonen, Peter, Björn and John, or heck, The Cardigans, there’s just something about it that leaves me cold. I don’t have anything against Scandinavia in general — some of my best friends are Vikings — and I firmly support their right to make music however and whenever and whyever they feel like it. It’s just not for me, apparently. (Most of it, anyway, but I’ll get to that.)

It’s not that it’s bad mind you; a lot of it’s very good. I can listen to Lekman and Lerche and appreciate what they do all day long, at least in an intellectual, damn-that’s-difficult-to-do sense. But does it really get me? Nope, sorry. In fact, maybe the seemingly effortless skill these folk from the Far, Far North display when it comes to songwriting and music as a whole that bugs me. It’s almost too perfect. Too bright, too shiny, too polished-clean, too freakin’ friendly for its own good. (Which, come to think of it, all kind of jibes with the handful of folks I’ve met over the years from Norway and Sweden.) Hell, even louder, more rock-oriented Scandinavian bands like Refused or The Hives (both of whom I like, by the way) manage/managed to make the supposed chaos they threw off sound awfully well-thought-out and meticulous.

Then there’s Loney, Dear, the one-man recording project (he has a live band now, apparently) of Stockholmer Emil Svanängen, whose first big-time full-length, Loney, Noir, was reportedly recorded all by Svanängen himself in either his teeny studio apartment or his parents’ basement. And it’s incredible. No, really; it blows me away, particularly the first half of the disc (I tend to lose momentum around “I Will Call You Lover Again”).

So what’s the deal? What’s Loney, Dear got that his fellow Swedes don’t have? Partly, it’s the voice. Svanängen’s got one of the most ineffably beautiful, highest-pitched voices I’ve ever heard from a guy — not that there aren’t guys who can sing this high, but that they’re not as downright pretty as this oddly elfin-sounding fellow. And then there’s the bit about halfway through “I Am John,” where an even higher voice comes in, sounding so gorgeously soprano and amazing that I had to double-check Loney, Dear’s bio; yep, that really is him, no girls involved (well, except maybe as inspiration, that is). It’s damned impressive, right on the verge of otherworldly. Svanängen’s vocals sound closer to those of a band from a totally different Scandinavian country than they do any of his countrymen/women. Think Sigur Rós’s Jónsi Birgisson singing and playing delicate indie-folk, and you’ll come close to the general sound of Loney, Noir.

That’s not all of it, however. Beyond Svanängen’s voice, what really sets Loney, Noir apart from other indie-pop pouring out of the North is that the music’s got an urgency, a heart to it that I haven’t heard from a whole lot of Svanängen’s peers. The sound is soft and gentle, but not twee (nope, not even with the vocals), reminiscent instead of the lite-but-quirky rock stylings of folks like Death Cab for Cutie or fellow Sub Popsters Wolf Parade. There’s a lot of Belle and Sebastian here, too, particularly in the driving urgency of the rhythms and the way each track builds and builds until it doesn’t feel like it can hold another drop of sound.

That layer-upon-layer building of sound seems to be Svanängen’s modus operandi, really. On album high point “I Am John,” for one, he slaps strings atop keys atop burbling fuzz-bass atop jangly Nick Drake guitars atop shimmery organ, managing to not let any of the pieces overwhelm any of the others. It careens along at a breakneck pace, seemingly unstoppable as the music gets more and more complex. “Carrying a Stone,” too, follows the same general pattern, swelling and surging upwards until it very nearly explodes, crescendoing in a moment of sublime, Polyphonic Spree-esque glory.

The songs themselves are insistent and careful, especially early on, but they avoid the pitfalls of over-meticulousness to which folks like Sondre Lerche (to my ear, anyway) fall victim. Tracks like “Sinister in a State of Hope” or “Saturday Waits” sound like holdovers from ’70s AM radio, all warm earth tones and smiles coupled with nicely layered strings, keys, and Svanängen’s crystalline vocals. Even songs like “No One Can Win” come off as triumphant and friendly, which is a little weird considering that the song’s basically an admission that the singer’s stuck in a no-win situation. By the time Svanängen nears the end of “Hard Days 1.2.3.4.” and leaps upward into a howl straight out of “Take On Me,” I’m finding that the smile plastered across my face won’t come off, no matter what I do.

[Loney, Dear is unfortunately not playing Houston any time soon, but he is/they are playing SXSW on March 13th through 15th, along with Of Montreal (check the SXSW site for schedules). You know what you’ve got to do.]