The legendary Jens Lekman seems to appear in manipulated form on the new Burial single, but he's coming back loud and clear with his own new high-concept project next month. Lekman's new album Songs For Other People’s Weddings was created in tandem with a novel of the same name by David Levithan, author of YA fiction such as Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist and Boy Meets Boy. The two works combine to tell a tale loosely based on Lekman's real-life side hustle as a wedding singer.
Our second preview of this album, out today, is a shapeshifting 10-minute epic called "Wedding In Leipzig." Lekman offered this context on the track:
"Wedding in Leipzig" is a song that never wanted to end, it just kept writing itself. I think it was 20 minutes long at one point before I started cutting it down. I think I was subconsciously inspired by Lou Reed’s "Street Hassle" when I was writing it. In the song we find J, the wedding singer in our story, in a rather desperate and vulnerable state as he makes his way to a wedding gig in Leipzig. There he's placed at the dreaded singles table, consisting of a bunch of loners and weirdos. And through stories told at the table, he begins to ponder what it means to be alone.
Hear "Wedding In Leipzig" below.
Songs For Other People's Weddings (the album) is out 9/12 via Secretly Canadian. The book of the same name is out today via Abrams.
