Intelligence can be a burden. I speak from experience, naturally. Sondre is clearly an intelligent man, an articulate man, and a man of some musical ability, too. But he doesn't quite fit in and finds himself at odds in his surroundings, with the world, the people around him. Perhaps that's why he makes music. He's not angry or sad, and isn't especially down about it. He's not even confused - well, not excessively so.
His eponymous album is wry, witty and somehow manages to capture something that’s uniquely and idiosyncratically New York. He’s no art-rock hipster or no-wave revivalist – in fact, he’s just a singer songwriter at heart, but he demonstrates a knack of making not being cool an art form as he fashions a set of quirky songs that range from the personal to the observational.
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Musically, experimental elements are in evidence, but they’re harnessed in such a way that at no point do they interfere with the accessibility of the songs – and ‘Sondre Lerche’ is very much a songs-orientated album. Rightly so, too: Sondre’s got a keen ear for a decent hook. So keen, in fact, that while I may have found the album vaguely irritating in laces on first listen, I found it hard to resist giving it another play, and before long, he’d won me over.
Sondre Lerche Online
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