Swedish singer Lykke Li is back tonight (Feb. 13) with the new single “Lucky Again,” which presages the May 8 release of her first album in four years, The Afterparty (Neon Gold/Futures✦). The nine-song, 24-minute project was written in Los Angeles and recorded in Stockholm with a 17-piece string orchestra and what’s said to be “a whole lot of flute.”
“Lucky Again” includes a sample of Max Richter’s “recomposed” version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. “To me it’s samsara in a song,” Lykke Li says. “The wheel of life; winning, losing, living, dying. Having had something and praying you’ll have it again, whether it’s sex, money, vitality, love. I always said I wanted the Vivaldi song at my wedding or funeral but I think this is giving more revenge heist energy.”
The artist inhabits an alter-ego throughout The Afterparty that she refers to as “Ram Dass for fuckboys. I find that we’re in an era where everyone is talking about ‘my higher self.’ Fuck that. This is an album dealing with your lower self: your need for revenge, your shame, despair, all of it.”
Describing the evolution of The Afterparty from her prior work, Lykke Li offers, “I was twirling around in love addiction for all those albums. Now I’m going into my existential era.”
Having not been onstage since April 2023, Lykke Li will return to the road starting April 10 at Coachella in Indio, Ca., and will also play May 22 in Rio de Janeiro, June 19 at Prague’s Metronome Festival, July 5 with Wolf Alice at London’s Finsbury Park, July 10 as one of the headliners at the Pohoda Festival in Slovakia and Sept. 19 opening for Robyn in Mexico City.