Albin Lee Meldau: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Robin Hilton, July 20, 2017 Few singers can command an audience s attention quite like Albin Lee Meldau. When I first saw him perform, at a church in Austin, Texas during South By Southwest last March, it felt like the entire audience was on the edge of its seat, hanging on every twisted word. His voice is breathtaking, soulful, thunderous and impossible to ignore. Watching Meldau in this Tiny Desk set, the first thing you ll notice, apart from that voice, is how possessed he is by the music. The words and melodies seem to take hold of him while at the same time offering a release, if only for a moment, from the knot of emotions he s carrying inside. It s in no small part because Meldau s music is so personal, centered on desperate souls in deeply troubled times. Lou Lou, the track he opens with and his most popular song, is a story of drug addiction and mental illness, inspired by a girl he knew while growing up in Sweden. He calls Bloodshot, the track he closes with, dark and horrible, about the