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BY Mick Lewis | The Big Takeover Magazine
POSTED OCT 13, 2024

Last night at a sold-out @LPRnyc:

Bergen, Norway sophisticated pop singer-songwriter @SondreLerche(whom I interviewed for @BigTakeoverMag in 2007) has been so prolifically forward-looking since debuting in 2001 as a 19-year-old wunderkind of snappy literate indie guitar pop, à la Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera), with 10 stylistically diverse original studio LPs, including his pinnacle (so far) 2022's Avatars of Love, many EPs and remixes, and exhilarating marathon live shows, that it would seem innate for him to eschew the music industry trend to repackage the past in pre-silver anniversary sentimentality, but as a key Avatars track acknowledges, "turns out [he's] sentimental after all."

Lerche arrived back in his once hometown of NYC on the eve of a great remastered reissue of 2004 LP Two Way Monologue (bonuses include a sparkling refinished song "September Something," an unreleased collaboration with major influence @PrefabSproutOfficial's @MartinMcAloon, and demos) to sing the whole LP with only acoustic guitar, backed by a lush string quartet of aces @BethanyBeach18 (who wrote sharp new arrangements for all but the title track, evoking Debussy impressionism and Bernard Herrmann tension throughout) on viola, my friend @Chopes26 of @DexysOfficial🎻, @CrankyMelimet 🎻, & EllieCello on cello to revisit an LP where he was still integrating his love of additional key inspirations Elvis Costello, Edwyn Collins/Orange Juice, Steely Dan, and bossa nova jazz in a splendid sonic palette with his aspirations to write standards outpacing his lived experience for lyric writing.

Lerche offered a counterpoint to the reverent reminiscing by charmingly critiquing/defending some of his original words in sly self-effacing asides (e.g. the chorus "Ba Ba Bas" on "Counter Spark" was a communication letdown of laziness, but "tears are pretzels pouring down" in "Track You Down" is "here to stay"), chalking up most of it as youthful regret for songs he wrote when he was "two," and opting to play the sumptuous "Days That Are Over" (with its "The Caves of Altamira" melody reference and @SeanOHagan.Music string arrangement) alone as a "bizarro version."

Overall, it was a very entertaining evening of nostalgia AND novelty, so much so that the rapt audience restrained itself from singing along until it was time to step up as Lerche's missing duet partner for an encore of debut LP fave "Modern Nature." Definitely catch Lerche's upcoming string quartet shows this week in Chicago & L.A. and in December in London.

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