In a curious development, Swedish indie pop auteur Jens Lekman has announced that he will be discontinuing his beloved 2007 album Night Falls Over Kortedala.
An announcement gives no reason for the album's deletion, and simply states that it will no longer be available in any digital or physical formats after this Monday (March 21). According to the press release from label Secretly Canadian, "Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala is leaving this life and heading into eternity. Purchase the record, download the digital album, and stream it for the very last time by March 21st."
On March 21, Secretly Canadian will host a final listening party on its YouTube channel at 11 a.m. ET.
Lekman hasn't clarified exactly why he's deleting what's arguably his most successful and beloved album, but a post on his website from May 2021 might shed some light. Lekman wrote:
I have a complicated relationship to the past. Everyone who writes and has had some form of success does. When my album Oh You're So Silent Jens was taken down ten years ago due to sample issues, I almost felt a relief. The past had become too heavy. It's hard to explain but it used to bother me when someone said they liked something I'd done in the past. It was like... Imagine you're 40, like me, and someone said "I saw a photo of you when you were 21, you looked really good back then". That's a nice thing to say but it can also unintentionally translate to "you don't look that good anymore". And it feels the same way with a song, especially if you're still trying to write new songs. So the album was gone and I thought that would make me feel better but the effect was much more extreme than I thought. Because of streaming and the way we've been listening to music the last ten years it was like the album had never existed. For any new listener that album is not even a gap in the record collection. It has no absence, there's no void, unless you know exactly where it was supposed to have been. And over time these old songs have become like new songs.
As of this writing, you have about three days to get your hands on a copy of Night Falls Over Kortedala.
An announcement gives no reason for the album's deletion, and simply states that it will no longer be available in any digital or physical formats after this Monday (March 21). According to the press release from label Secretly Canadian, "Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala is leaving this life and heading into eternity. Purchase the record, download the digital album, and stream it for the very last time by March 21st."
On March 21, Secretly Canadian will host a final listening party on its YouTube channel at 11 a.m. ET.
Lekman hasn't clarified exactly why he's deleting what's arguably his most successful and beloved album, but a post on his website from May 2021 might shed some light. Lekman wrote:
I have a complicated relationship to the past. Everyone who writes and has had some form of success does. When my album Oh You're So Silent Jens was taken down ten years ago due to sample issues, I almost felt a relief. The past had become too heavy. It's hard to explain but it used to bother me when someone said they liked something I'd done in the past. It was like... Imagine you're 40, like me, and someone said "I saw a photo of you when you were 21, you looked really good back then". That's a nice thing to say but it can also unintentionally translate to "you don't look that good anymore". And it feels the same way with a song, especially if you're still trying to write new songs. So the album was gone and I thought that would make me feel better but the effect was much more extreme than I thought. Because of streaming and the way we've been listening to music the last ten years it was like the album had never existed. For any new listener that album is not even a gap in the record collection. It has no absence, there's no void, unless you know exactly where it was supposed to have been. And over time these old songs have become like new songs.
As of this writing, you have about three days to get your hands on a copy of Night Falls Over Kortedala.
