Lenka Kripac Discography

• 
  Lenka
  (2008)

See also Biography Index (L) :: Filmography Index (L) :: Discography Index (L)

“I’m really in my element,” says Lenka as the wind chimes sound and she surveys the forest outside the Woodstock, NY recording studio where she laid down the final tracks of her self-titled solo debut and is now noodling around on a few other tunes. The natural setting clearly reminds her of home – not her adopted home of Los Angeles, but the Australian bush, where she grew up.

“My parents were hippies and my dad built a house on the south coast of New South Wales,” she explains. “I’m still very attached to that part of the world, even though we moved to Sydney when I was seven.”

In Sydney, Lenka went on to become a teen actress who trained with Cate Blanchett, thereafter landing leading roles on stage, television and in indie films, a self-described “punk-ass art school student” and vocalist/keyboardist for acclaimed indie electronic/ambient outfit Decoder Ring. Now she has flung herself into two new worlds simultaneously: she’s moved to California and become a solo artist. But no matter where she ventures, those early memories follow. Others may struggle to get in touch with their inner child; Lenka never lost hers.

Her sinuous vocals drape around her lyrics with the ease of a child hanging onto its mother’s legs…or of a serpent wrapping itself around the neck of its prey. Whether channeling our long-repressed terrors (“Trouble Is A Friend”) or long-lost innocence (“We Will Not Grow Old”), her music evokes primal emotions, unblemished by pretense or cynicism – and unashamed of cracking a smile occasionally.

“Trouble is a friend but trouble is a foe/And no matter what I feed him, he always seems to grow,” she sings over an ominous piano vamp in “Trouble Is...” A vibraphone – one of numerous instruments she plays on the album – conjures up eerie visions of a deep, dark woods, but Lenka’s spine-tingling “ah-ah-oo” howl suggests that Trouble really is the one in trouble now.

“It’s a mood-enhancer,” she says of her record and mood enhancing is something she’s a bit of an expert at, having provided the “strangely haunting” (Rolling Stone) vocals for Decoder Ring’s evocative soundscapes over the course of two albums. “I don’t like it when people are depressed. I want to cheer them up,” she says, giving Trouble a swift kick in the ass.

Although the album is rife with broken romances (“Wrote Me Out,” co-written with AFI’s Hunter Burgan, strangely enough), self-loathing (“Anything I’m Not”), difficult relationships (“Dangerous & Sweet,” with – stranger still – Howie Day on guest vocals) and long distance longing (“Skipalong”), it is nevertheless uplifting.

In characteristic Lenka fashion, lead single “The Show” takes a dour premise – that life is a show, and sometimes a pretty bad one at that – and delivers it with unexpected aplomb, erupting into a bold, brassy closing refrain of “I want my money back!” “I decided I should just get all my friends to come in and be like the drunken tavern chorus,” she explains. “Australian folk singer Missy Higgins joined in on the bit.”

“Don’t Let Me Fall,” with strings conducted by composer/arranger David Campbell (otherwise known as Beck’s father), began as a neurotic love song inspired by the work of filmmaker/performance artist/author Miranda July (Me And You and Everyone We Know), but evolved into an exquisitely soothing song that borders on lullaby. Producer Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Jay Z) aided Lenka in this bit of alchemy, arranging for the ses

Post a Comment | View All Comments (1)