Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman utterly beguiled Toronto yesterday, first at a half-hour in-store at Soundscapes and then again at Wavelength at Sneaky Dee’s.

At the in-store, he performed accompanying himself with a ukelele and backed by a double-bassist, singing wry and jaunty songs about life, love and other such trifles. For the evening show, he was backed by members of The Hidden Cameras since he had left his band behind in the US, coming to play in Canada on the sly (though he will return in the Summer to do a more thorough Canadian tour). It was a brief set, maybe barely 45 minutes, Lekman thoroughly entertained the packed house with his rich croon, impeccable melodies and penchant for clever wordplay.

He brings to mind a cross between Stephin Merritt (but without the deadpan gallows humour) and Stuart Murdoch (but without the lisp or wispinesS), with a touch of Morrissey (but without the archness). Who he reminds me the most of, though, is Jonathan Richman – particularly on the folkier ukelele-led stuff. When he picked up the electric guitar and brought the full band out to back him, it was a full-on pop explosion straight out of the Sixties. It was really quite superb.

After finishing his set, Lekman invited everyone out onto College St for an encore, but I couldn’t stick around for it, what with it being a work night and already running later than I’d expected. And for the same reason, pictures won’t be until tomorrow, sorry.

France’s La Blogotheque has a couple of live Arcade Fire mp4s (Winamp will play it as an audio file but Quicktime will play it as video) recorded at Le Nouveau Casino in Paris last Thursday. There’s “Crown Of Love” and “My Heart Is An Apple”, which is quite rare. Also, here are some pics of the band performing a White Session for French radio last week. Note – the pages are all in French, but don’t be afraid. They’re mostly harmless. Thanks to Chryde for the link.

This week’s Splendid interview features Toronto’s own Sadies.

Of The Record has finally gotten over last Fall’s election results and has returned to life. Go say hello, grab some music on your way out.

I finished Knights Of The Old Republic 2 yesterday, great game but man – was it easy. I only had trouble with one battle and it wasn’t any of the end guys. A little disappointed with that. I will probably re-play it on the Dark Side later, but for now it’ll be good to have the time I was spending playing it back to waste on other things.

np – The Wedding Present / Take Fountain

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