You Are the Light

Opening with all the pomp of a ferocious episode of "The Price Is Right," "You Are the Light" finds Jens Lekman in full effect, ditching the samples in favor of -- gasp! -- real musicians performing in a real studio. Jens even flew to Denmark to work with the preeminent Horn Quartet of continental Europe. "You Are the Light" showcases the blossoming of a master songwriter discovering his voice and his method in the most classic sense. Just as pop stars Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker, and Prince segued from their early work into their more wildly iconoclastic periods, "You Are the Light" signals not only a birthing for Jens, but also the end of an era for him. On this EP, we also find Jens at perhaps his most vulnerable -- the spare "A Man Walks Into a Bar" is essentially just Jens and a mic. This EP serves as a coda to his upcoming debut full-length, "When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog," which was recorded at the tail end of those album sessions, and, ultimately, it gives a small insight into where this burgeoning maestro is going. For fans of the Magnetic Fields, Smog, the Modern Lovers, Rufus Wainwright, and Belle & Sebastian.