Oh, you've been so silent, Jens!

I'm leaving you because I don't love you? pic from Border Music

Dear Jens,

I don't know where you are, or where this might find you, yet I thought I'd write anyway...

See, we're a bit concerned. The last time we saw anything from you on your website, where you once semi-regularly updated your tour and, more interestingly, your 'smalltalk' section where you posted such beautiful little snapshots of yourself and that which surrounded you, dates back to June 30. Your Myspace also remains, as anyone who has paid it a visit over the last few years might already be familiar with, its usual inert self (Wanna add him as a friend? Ha! Just try!). One of the last things we heard was that you had left Kortedala, left Sweden altogether in fact, and were relocating to Australia. You said you were going to Melbourne, after which you'd 'head up north'.

You posted the following on one of your last posts:

Anyways, touring all spring was the worst idea I've ever been talked into. I think it was Joe Franklin who once said that the most important thing in showbusiness is sincerity and learning how to fake it. But I just can't pull it off. I just can't glue that fake smile to my face and go out there, it makes me feel like a fraud. I've really been struggling with tricking myself into being excited for every show.

I'm very happy to announce that my last show this year will be at Hammarkulle Karnevalen

While in an interview with Pitchfork, given before Night Falls on Kortedala, you were quoted as saying:

So I was thinking of just trying to settle down. I think I need a new home and a new place and to see how that place and home and how the people who live there will influence my music

Now we have of course seen this before. You once exchanged your ukulele for bingo chips. Adoring fans for the elderly; change jingling in their corduroy pockets. Excited cheers no longer emitted by pretty young girls, but absorbed by wall-to-wall carpet.

 But you came back, yes, you returned! That really was all that mattered at the time. Your bingo days consigned to song, you created another beautiful album. You even toured it around the world, though I never really understood why...


And yet this time feels different somehow. Perhaps you've woven such a large amount of final straws into something, a boat perhaps, and sailed away for good...

Have you finally left you fickle lover for good this time? Have you grown tired of touring and record labels, of sample clearing and tour bus toilets and fans and t-shirts and singing the same songs again and again?


Perhaps you've returned to the bingo halls, this time down under rather than, well, 'up on top'. Does carpet soften your step once more? Must you repeat loudly every word uttered?


Or have you perhaps taken up surfing, picking apples, or decorating your house?

 While pondering all this, last week you suddenly appeared on a Black Cab session, performing 'Black Cab' in a, well, a black cab.

Anyone looking for clues here will not find any, nor does the very existence and release time of this video offer any further clue, given that it was in fact not filmed recently. I wrote to the brilliant people at the Black Cab Sessions, and asked them for the session's exact date, which they kindly told me was May 20th, at 4pm, before your show at the London Scala.

Again, no clue.

Further searching then brought me to The Whitest Boy Alive’s Myspace site, which informs us that you will be joining them on a date of their tour… in Jakarta, on November 29th of this year...

 

So, the plot thickens. Could this be a comeback of sorts? A testing toe stuck back into the murky waters from which you've twice before withdrawn?

So I wrote to The Whitest Boy Alive, asking them what the plan is for this planned gig, and they had this to say:

"    "

They unfortunately have yet to reply. The story then surfaced that you were to perform at the Brooklyn Vegan CMJ Showcase as the 'Singing DJ Jens Lekman', which took place just a few days ago...


So here we are, it's October, the days have grown shorter, Halloween is but a few days away, and we still are none the wiser, or at least not much the wiser.

Jens, send us a postcard, drop us a line. And make sure you record, tape, write down, or simply remember whatever pretty melodies you find yourself humming, wherever it is you are.

We can't wait to hear them.

Lots of love,

Letters have no Arms

Jens Lekman - The Death of this Summer 

Jens Lekman - Kalendervagen (a concert Jens did for the Kortedala beauty centre before leaving Sweden)

Jens Lekman - A Little Lost (Arthur Russell Cover)

Jens Lekman - Do impossible things 

Buy Jens CDs, records, t-shirts and posters from insound

For more amazing videos, make your way over to The Black Cab Sessions

UPDATE: Well, I didn't expect a reply that soon, but Jens has just announced he'll perform a benefit concert as well as a solo gig in November. One is in Northampton, MA, the other in Williamsburg, VA. Still no confirmation of the Jakarta gig though.