Lykke Li

Early life

Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson was born in Ystad, Skåne; her mother, Kärsti Stiege, was a photographer, and her father, Johan Zachrisson (stage name Zilverzurfarn), is a member of the Swedish punk-reggae band Dag Vag. Her younger brother, Zacharias Zachrisson (a.k.a. Vacation Forever), is also a musician. The family moved to Stockholm when Zachrisson was a toddler and when she was six moved to a mountaintop in Portugal where they lived for five years. The family also spent time in Lisbon and Morocco, and winters in Nepal and India. She moved to Brooklyn, New York City, for three months when she was 19. She returned when she was 21 to record her album.

2007–2010: Career beginnings and Youth Novels

Lykke Li released her first EP, Little Bit, in 2007. Stereogum named her an artist to watch in October 2007 and described her music as a mix of soul, electro and "powdered-sugar pop".

Possibility

"Possibility" is a song recorded by Swedish recording artist Lykke Li for the soundtrack to the 2009 film The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Li had been asked to write a song for the film soundtrack, but she was initially reluctant to commit to the project.

After seeing an early film screening, she decided she wanted to contribute to the soundtrack.

Background and writing

Li commented on the song in an October 2009 interview with MTV News, saying, "Everyone kept asking me if I wanted to do it, how [the song] was going, when would I have it finished, and I was like, 'Eh, I don't know, maybe I'll do it, maybe I won't.' I mean, I had heard of the Twilight phenomenon, but I didn't read the books or watch the first movie or anything. I mean, I'm Swedish." She also added, "I stayed [in Los Angeles] and watched the movie, when it only had green screen on it. I had this hook in my mind, even before I saw the movie, and then I was watching it, and I was like, 'That's the hook!' So it was very much like a discovery, inside myself and musically. I had this song growing inside of me that I had to get out, and [the...

Critical reception

"Possibility" was well received by music critics. Todd Martens wrote for the Los Angeles Times that Li "could melt the coldest of hearts with this sparse tearjerker. A slight scratch in her vocals cuts through the song's intimately innocent feel. 'Tell me when you hear my heart stop,' she sings, while a backing choir inflects the sparse piano with gospel undertones—a brief, largely a cappella prayer." Dose magazine referred to the song as "one of the more gripping mope-outs on the disc. The Swedish pop-singer coos in a cracked-with-emotion whisper, accompanied by a barely-there piano, as she pines for a lover." Consequence of Sound critic Anthony Balderrama noted that Li "channels some of the more intimate moments of her short career on...

Music video

The music video for "Possibility" consists of Li's live performance of the song at Stockholm's Decibel Studios on 9 March 2010, and was directed by Marcus Palmqvist and Frode Fjerdingstad. The singer posted the video on her official website on 18 March 2010—coinciding with her twenty-fourth birthday—, saying:

Reception

Mikela Floyd of Filter described the video as "the perfect visual representation of her ballad". Tyler Grisham of Pitchfork wrote it is "about as somber as the tune itself".

Little Bit

"Little Bit" is a song by Swedish singer Lykke Li from her debut studio album, Youth Novels (2008). Produced by Björn Yttling and co-produced by Lasse Mårtén, the track was released on 24 September 2007 as the album's lead single.

It was included on the soundtrack to the HBO series Bored to Death, while a snippet of the song was used in the commercial for Victoria's Secret Ipex bra starring Heidi Klum. Also, rapper Charles Hamilton sampled the song on his track Starchasers from his mixtape It's Charles Hamilton.

Critical reception

"Little Bit" received positive reviews from many music critics. In a review for Blogcritics, Tan The Man wrote that the song is "mesmerizing, evoking a sensual striptease fantasy by a former love" and that it "fuses so many sounds, from quasi-bossa nova to soul, while maintaining a simplistic and raw, non-explicitly erotic beat in the background." Matthew Perpetua from Spin rated the track seven out of ten, stating it is "built upon the clack and clang of acoustic percussion and little else, aside from occasional bits of guitar or saxophone", addind that it sounds "exceptionally intimate, to the point where it's easy to feel voyeuristic when listening on the title cut to her unguarded declaration of love." Q magazine noticed "a breathless...

I Follow Rivers

"I Follow Rivers" is a song by Swedish recording artist Lykke Li from her second studio album, Wounded Rhymes (2011). Produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, it was released on 21 January 2011 as the album's second single.

The track premiered exclusively on SPIN.com on 10 January 2011.

Music video

The music video, directed by Tarik Saleh and filmed at Närsholmen on the Swedish island of Gotland, features Li in a black robe and veil chasing a man (Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares) through a snowy landscape.

I'm Good, I'm Gone

"I'm Good, I'm Gone" is a song by Swedish singer Lykke Li from her debut studio album, Youth Novels (2008). Produced by Björn Yttling and co-produced by Lasse Mårtén, it was released on 14 January 2008 as the album's second single.

It was featured in the video game FIFA 09, while the Black Kids remix of the song was included on the soundtrack to the 2009 horror film Sorority Row. Rolling Stone listed it at number 34 on its list of the 100 Best Singles of 2008.