Lykke Li - Eyeye (LP)

Lykke Li’s fifth album, EYEYE, arrived in May 2022 and feels like a quiet reset. After the glossier angles of so sad so sexy in 2018, she retreats into a small, dim room and lets the air do most of the work. The songs are spare and loop driven, the kind you feel in your chest before you notice the details, and they play like a single heartbreak circling back on itself. That circular feel is by design. She built the record with longtime collaborator Björn Yttling, the Peter Bjorn and John co-founder who shaped her early classics, and they keep everything minimal, no click tracks, little polish, close mic’d vocals that sound like they were recorded a breath away.

There is a tactile intimacy to the production. Li has talked about recording vocals to analogue tape, and it shows in the soft grain at the edges of her voice. Beats pulse like a small room drum machine in the next flat, bass murmurs rather than thumps, and synths hover low and pale. Nothing is rushed. She is not trying to knock you over, she is trying to stay with you, and that restraint turns tiny choices into drama. A single hi hat tick snaps your attention. A harmony lands half a bar late and suddenly the lyric stings. It is the kind of record that invites you to turn it up just to catch the secrets hiding in the hush.

EYEYE also arrived with a series of 16mm visual loops rather than traditional clips, small filmic scenes that echo the album’s theme of repetition. They reinforce the sense that we are peering at the same lovers at different times of the same story. It is a smart bit of world building that suits the music’s ghostly economy. The songs are intimate, but they are not diary entries. They are distilled, almost like folk laments fed through a minimal pop engine.

What makes the record land is Li’s voice, still one of the most recognisable in modern pop. She sings like she is sharing a secret across a kitchen bench at 1am, all ache and clarity, cutting through the fog with plain language and fine phrasing. The choruses rarely explode, they gather. When a melody does step forward, it does so with purpose, and the tension between restraint and release keeps you leaning in. Fans of Youth Novels will hear echoes of that early weightless sadness, though the writing here is sharper, less ornamental, more about mood and memory than showy hooks.

Critics clocked the pivot. Outlets like Pitchfork and The Guardian noted the radical simplicity and how effectively it refocuses your ear on timbre and feeling. You can tell Yttling knows when to get out of the way, and when to slide a line of guitar or a submerged piano figure under her to keep the song breathing. It is a trust built over years, and the chemistry reads. Even across a concise runtime, the album builds a complete emotional environment, the kind that sticks around after the last track fades. I found myself letting it loop, then loop again, like the films.

For the vinyl tragics among us, this is one of those records that blossoms on a turntable. The quiet mastering gives the dynamics room, the tape warmth loves a stylus, and the close-up vocal work feels almost tactile. If you are crate digging at a Melbourne record store, slide EYEYE next to your Cocteau Twins and Tirzah records and see how naturally it slots into those twilight moods. Hunting for EYEYE vinyl online is worth the trouble too, especially if you value albums that reward late night plays. It is also an easy recommendation for anyone looking to buy Lykke Li records online, or collecting Lykke Li albums on vinyl as a set. If you keep an eye on the usual outlets for vinyl records Australia, you will spot copies without too much pain. And if you are searching for Lykke Li vinyl in general, start here, it explains the appeal neatly.

EYEYE is not built for the algorithm. It rewards attention, and it gets under your skin. That is the trick Lykke Li has always pulled off when she is at her best, and in 2022 she found a way to make it feel new again. Intimate, focused, quietly devastating, this is a late night companion and a smart addition to any collection. Turn the lights low, let the needle drop, and let it repeat until the room feels different.