Seattle Subsonic

Love Is All Keeps Me Up At Night

June 9th, 2009

I went to Neumos last night to check out one of my favorite Swedish bands (there’re a lot of those, ya know), Love Is All. In person, the quintet actually sounds cleaner than they do on record, but certainly no less rambunctious and punch-packing. Hailing from Gothenburg, the spastic dance-punkers played a medium-sized set in front of a somewhat sparse Monday night crowd (man, getting to a Monday show these days is like draggin’ my idiot ass to a smart convention—rough). Oddly, the setlist consisted of very few songs off their latest album (and the one I’m most familiar with) A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night. A mild bummer. Notable omissions were “19 Floors” and “Big Bangs, Black Holes, Meteorites”.

.

They played “Wishing Well” and “Give It Back” near the beginning; and then “Last Choice” and “Sea Sick” somewhere in the middle. They also played a handful of cuts from their debut Nine Times That Same Song, including the disco-inflected punk ragga of “Busy Doing Nothing”, the charming and chiming “Make Out Fall Out Make Up” and also “Spinning and Scratching”. I think there were a few others off Nine Times—though I can’t be sure—but they might’ve also played a bunch of new songs. They did, in fact, have a new 5-song EP for sale.

.

.

One of my favorite parts of the band (albeit the most audible) is guitarist Nicholaus Sparding. He must have bone chips removed from his elbow regularly cuz that dude can really abuse those strings. He made my hips wiggle wantonly. My date made the comment that his play reminded her of Johnny Marr (only maybe sped up). I nodded and added that he kinda looked like him, too. We were satisfied with our respective observations. And, oh yeah, bassist Johan Lindwall is reaaaaaaaallly good; no kidding.

.

Of course, vocalist/keyboardist/noisemaker Josephine Olaussen is the real draw, with her worm-like lyrics of humorous xenophobia and peculiar life perceptions squiggling into your ear and eating at your brain. I’ve tried restlessly to get the line “Big bangs, black holes, meteorITES! / A hundred things keep me UP at night!” out of my head, to no avail. Other infectious lines I can’t forget: “I need a new beGINNING / I need a different thing / I want an extra INNING / So I turn to spring!” from “New Beginnings” and “Am I the only one / with an original HIP?!” from the laughable “Sea Sick”. She was dressed like a Value Village bin-hunter, with an oversized white Nirvana tee, black tights, and pillowy blue shorts. Those crazy Swedes.

.

Amendment: You can get yourself a few tunes here.

.

(Local garage-rock brats TacocaT also played. They were fun. There’s a couple pics after the jump/cut/fold/whatever.)