Lykke Li

EYEYE - Released 20-MAR-2022 on PIAS

I know. I am two years late coming to this but I missed this release. So here are some of my thoughts after listening for about a week. BTW it's November 2024 :)

Lykke Li’s latest album, EYEYE, is a sensory journey into romantic obsession, melancholic reflection, and emotional loops that refuse to end. Collaborating again with Björn Yttling, the producer behind her early work, Li takes a bold step away from conventional pop, creating an album that feels raw, intimate, and dreamlike—much like a series of voice memos recorded in the throes of longing and despair.

EYEYE is a true mood piece, captured in the artist’s own bedroom, stripped of digital instruments or overproduction. Li made deliberate choices to keep things lo-fi and imperfect, using handheld drum mics and no click tracks, aiming for the kind of intimacy one might find listening to a raw voice memo. The result is a collection of songs that echo with an evocative, haunting placidity—a fragile beauty that’s stark and cinematic. With the album accompanied by visual loops directed by Theo Lindquist and shot on 16mm film by Edu Grau, every element of EYEYE is hyper-sensory, designed to pull listeners into an almost surreal experience of heartbreak and passion.

The album opens with “NO HOTEL,” immediately establishing a sense of woozy longing, its minimalism drenched in wistful melancholy. The lyrics capture Li’s signature vulnerability: “Heart beat, half-dead, I carry blue / With every step, I’m not over you.” Tracks like “YOU DON’T GO” delve into shoegaze territory, while “HIGHWAY TO YOUR HEART” marries sparse Americana with delicate synth-pop flourishes, illustrating the futility of attempting to escape one's own heartbreak. The lyrics echo a familiar resignation: “Get high, but it won’t last – I’m still alone.” Meanwhile, “HAPPY HURTS” takes a psych-pop turn, floating upwards like a haunting dream, and “CAROUSEL” captures the dizzying cycle of obsession, twirling like a fairground ride that never stops.

What makes EYEYE stand out is its refusal to offer polished pop hooks for easy consumption. This album is lo-fi, intimate, and brimming with a sense of raw emotion that recalls Li's earlier work, yet it is much more experimental and cinematic in its presentation. The visual accompaniments further enrich the experience, each song paired with a film loop that mirrors the cyclical nature of heartbreak—repetitive but strangely irresistible. These visuals, bathed in saturated reds and blues, and featuring handheld, drunken camera movements, perfectly capture the album's emotional core—a mix of romantic obsession, fragility, and longing.

The closing track, “ü&i,” stands as a culmination of all that has come before. It’s expansive, unfolding like a movie, full of different scenes—some tender, some painfully raw. “The movie is you and I,” Li sings, encapsulating the idea that love, in all its intensity and confusion, is the story we replay over and over, unable to let go. It’s a deeply affecting end to an album that embraces the messiness of human emotions, refusing to offer tidy resolutions.

EYEYE is not an album to play in the background—it demands your full attention, wrapping you in its hypnotic, hazy embrace. It’s an exploration of cycles—of love, obsession, heartbreak, and recovery—where each repetition reveals a new nuance, a new layer of meaning. Lykke Li has taken her sad-pop roots and transformed them into something more profound and experiential, creating an album that breathes, sighs, and keeps you lost in its emotional haze long after it’s over.