Marcel Winatschek

What Lykke Li Does With a Quiet Room

Lykke Li was never going to be a comfortable listen. Even at her most stripped-down—just a kick drum and something that sounds like a bruise—there’s an undertow that keeps you from settling. Jerome, from around this period, has that same quality: a song that sounds addressed to one specific person about one specific grief, and yet arrives somewhere personal every time regardless. That was the trick she kept pulling off. The more particular the pain, the further it travels.