I'm From Barcelona Let Me Introduce My Friends by: Al Cottrill Tue:13-Feb-07 Label: Dolores Year: 2006 WB rating 75 out of 100

It is a long drive, the antenna on my car is broken and I have only one album for company. Maybe if it wasn’t raining it wouldn’t have come to this, but for now I am frantically rifling through this record: skipping melodies, sidestepping harmonies, and letting childish lyrics slip out into the storm. I am harried in my search for a resting place, a song, a couplet, an intermission that will give some respite from the constant merriment and glee of I’m From Barcelona. Let Me Introduce My Friends is an album of pure indie-pop, saccharine sweet and twee as fuck. And I am addicted to its affections.

The squall outside does little to improve my mood; giving in to boredom, desire, addiction, the album is allowed another turn.

At 29-members strong this collective is more cult than chorus, led by the flame-haired Emanuel Lundgren: founder, songwriter, leader. Pausing for just a moment, opener ‘Oversleeping’ provides only a second of leisure before bursting out of the blocks, glockenspiels and drums rolling over one another in boisterous golden excitement. It is a fully formed slice of pop bliss, the chorus dismissing Lundgren’s extended slumber with a simplicity and imagination only capable of a child: “I don’t care/let’s pretend it’s Sunday”.

The unconvincing ‘Collecting Stamps’ follows, it is one of the few occasions where the immaturity of the lyrics is matched by the music, and it descends into Sesame Street-like parody. It is a weakness in the album and my attention is almost allowed to wander. Or it would have, were it not quickly revived by ‘We’re From Barcelona’, the principal temptress in the gathering of sirens on this album. The harmonium intro is impossibly memorable, and the “na na na nas” have branded themselves on my psyche. They keep me awake at night, racing through my mind, jammed on repeat – suddenly hearing: “you’ll be one of us/when the night comes” takes on a more sinister tone.

‘Treehouse’ continues in the same vein, simple and childish subject matter brought to life by its extraordinarily catchy backing. I’m From Barcelona are exploiting the direct line to my hippocampus they have established: a young boy’s adventure, searching for the perfect place for a tree house. I am rushing now, childhood memories come roaring back, flooding my mind with recollections of sandpits, grass stains and ladybugs. Hand claps and horns, bells and kazoos; instruments children play, unnameable other sounds coming together in euphony, eliciting an immediately intoxicating happiness. Hooked, I have no choice but to join in, smiling, singing, dancing, clapping. I am one of them – assimilated into their chorus.

Despite the lack of originality expected in a style of music crafted from the innocence of childhood, Let Me Introduce My Friends retains a freshness disregarding its inherent familiarity. The enormous hooks, shimmering melodies, and clever packaging of adult themes as children’s stories elevate the songs to higher planes:  ‘Treehouse’ is analogous to the search for a perfect relationship, the opposing ‘Chicken Pox’ for a break-up. Unfortunately the album is not free of blemish; ‘Jenny’ is the Shout Out Louds’, ‘100 Degrees’ re-imagined as elevator muzak, while Loney, dear helps ‘This Boy’ sound like a glaring Architecture in Helsinki imitation. I did not come here for the cover band.

‘Ola Kala’ roughly means ‘everything’s okay’. I am not okay; I am woozy with song, drunk on melody and stumbling from track to track.  Dancing, singing, even between songs I find myself moving; up and down, smiling like an idiot.  People are staring.  My movements to the track are more stilted than usual, the songs tempo switching from the quick-fire, jittering verse into the uplifting, swaying lighter-in-the-air chorus that makes up the second half of the song.  Few bands could achieve such an extended outro without pretension or tedium, yet for I’m From Barcelona it is effortless and fitting. 



Reaching my destination, I turn to leave this party.  But something does not sit right in my mind. As I wait, the stereo’s timecount meandering onwards, something catches my ear. Suddenly, faintly, muffled, but there none the less; voices. It is another language, in another room.  It is making sense now; the reason the music sticks in my mind; why it hounds me into sleeplessness; the cockeyed stares my muted dancing draws. 

Suddenly, the band breaks out again. A hidden track; it is faster, less childish, and the singing is rough and free. Singing in his native tongue, Lundgren finally reveals the truth about his band – they are not Barcelonans at all.

The deception could not be maintained forever. Music this exuberant, hooks this catchy, songs so simple – it could only come from Sweden.  I’m From Barcelona’s true compatriots: Shout Out Louds, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Peter Bjorn and John have all preoccupied me in the past year. Swedish pop is an addiction as damaging to circadian rhythms as any amphetamine. Even knowing the truth, I cannot hate these smiling faces. Their music is playful and boisterous, in a beautifully childish way, and their mirth infectious, flowing from a Neverland in Lundgren’s mind. With this music in my mind, anger is impossible, and I am quick to forget its damning effects.