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Live Review: WATCH: Jens Lekman 'I Know What Love Isn't'

19 August 2012 | 9:00 am | Brad Davies

After a long hiatus Jens Lekman has released his new track 'I Know What Love Isn't', which is accompanied by a 'road-movie' style video.

'I Know What Love Isn't' is the title track from JENS LEKMAN's first full length release in 5 long years. The charming Swede, who has made quirky pop lyrics and lush sampling his calling card, has been through a lot since 2007's gorgeous Night Falls Over Kortedala, including spending time living in both New York and Melbourne where he wrote and recorded the forthcoming album.

'I Know What Love Isn't' plays out at the kind of gentle pace that's required when dealing with the emotional fragility of someone on the wrong end of an unpleasant break up which is precisely what Lekman had been through. It's optimistic and warm but still a little jaded, like someone returning to the comfort of an everyday routine but carrying a sense of caution about becoming vulnerable enough to get back on the relationship horse.

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The song finds Jens reflecting on a time that is post heartache but still tender enough to be indulging in self preservatory activities like avoiding spooning couples at gigs, and turning girls into numbers as he and a friend cruise Lygon Street in an old Holden. He even admits to considering the rash option of marrying for the strictly platonic purpose of citizenship, a story he confirmed as true in a recent Pitchfork interview.

Rather than being about the raw emotion that exists in the immediate aftermath of a break up it picks up at a time when the dust is settling and the lessons learnt from these past experiences are coming into focus. That focus also translates to the more restrained sound at play when comparing it to previous efforts. His signature use of strings, piano and acoustic guitar is still there but the scale has gone from grand to something far more delicate and intimate.

As a statement, 'I Know What Love Isn't' encapsulates the great uncertainty of life as a freshly single in that the only real definitives are in what is already behind us. He doesn't know what love is, but he knows it wasn't that.

Words by Brad Davies.