“hard rain”

Lykke Li has never stopped moving forward. Her debut album, 2008’s Youth Novels, introduced a Robyn-cosigned indie-pop singer who could rattle like weird-era Tom Waits and score a sultry remix by pre-fame Drake. The follow-up, 2011’s Wounded Rhymes, confirmed her as a creative force, alternately atmospheric and sparse, brash and vulnerable, but always savvy and uncompromising. On 2014’s powerfully raw I Never Learn, she was the unplugged priestess of pain. Now, after a slight detour in the past few years with her earthy folk-pop band LIV, the Swedish-born artist is back with an upcoming album, so sad so sexy, and two new tracks. As ever, she sounds both deeply engaged with recent musical trends and slightly off to the side from them.

“hard rain,” the opening track on the record, is produced by Vampire Weekend wunderkind-turned-pop auteur Rostam Batmanglij. Together they make something that might most closely be called “cyborg trap chamber soul.” First, there’s an insistent hum of what sounds like cello, a casual clap now and then, and a sing-songy chant: “If you like the feeling of a hard rain falling/I have a seaful/I can give you an ocean,” Lykke Li sings. It’s thrilling enough when her own digitally tweaked vocals join in cybernetic harmony, distantly recalling Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, and she’s joined by icy beats as she slips into a slinky verse smacking of 1990s R&B. But it’s flat-out dizzying when her robot voice suddenly starts trading off with a deeper version of her android voice, confiding intimate worries in a conversational cadence close to rapping. “hard rain” builds and then subsides with inventive sonic choices around every corner. Through it, Lykke Li is questioning a lover, questioning love, blaming herself. It’s a futuristic quiet storm, and there’s no shelter.