Lykke Li Announces Immersive Audiovisual Album, EYEYE, Out May 20

(Photo Courtesy of Theo Lindquist)

Lykke Li announces EYEYE (pronounced EYE), an immersive audiovisual album. Lykke’s most intimate project to date, EYEYE reunites her with longtime collaborator Björn Yttling, their first time working together since 2014’s acclaimed I NEVER LEARN. Recorded in her bedroom in Los Angeles, EYEYE is Lykke’s attempt to compress a lifetime of romantic obsession and female fantasy into a hyper sensory landscape.

The album is accompanied by seven visual loops: together, the music and visuals reveal a grander narrative, a story about the eternally returning cycles of love, addiction, relapse and obsession (the album’s title and running time are palindromic). EYEYE is not a return to form. It is Lykke’s final confrontation with the form that has defined her career. It’s a breakup with the breakup album, and the singer’s magnum opus.

After four critically-acclaimed studio albums, Lykke wanted to use a different palette to make EYEYE. She imposed a dogmatic set of rules to govern each aspect of the production. There were no clicktracks, no headphones, and no digital instruments. The vocals were recorded on a handheld $70 drum mic, often in the moment of composition, giving the lyrics the still-beating sound of fresh heartbreak being whispered into your ear. The record was mixed to tape by Shawn Everett over several months in Los Angeles. The result is a shimmering 33-minute carousel-ride through emotional hyperspace, with stripped-down production, swirling analog synths, and the massive pop hooks that longtime fans will recognize as the singer’s stock-in-trade. “I wanted the record to have the intimacy of listening to a voice memo on a macro dose of LSD,” Lykke says.

EYEYE Tracklisting

1. NO HOTEL
2. YOU DON’T GO AWAY
3. HIGHWAY TO YOUR HEART
4. HAPPY HURTS
5. CAROUSEL
6. 5D
7. OVER
8. u&i