I first met Arthur Russell when I was 19. I had just graduated and all my friends had gone to London or Paris. I was left alone with exactly 126 euros and I knew I had to go somewhere. The only thing I could find for that money was a bus trip to the Mosel Valley in Germany. Unfortunately it turned out to be a wine-testing trip for old people. I was highly disappointed at first, I had expected some kind of adventure, but after a while I just started walking around in the hills with my walkman. A friend had made a tape with songs from Arthur Russell's "Another Thought" and so that week the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard accompanied the most beautiful landscapes I'd ever seen. I burned my neck really bad.

Four years later I was playing shows here and there and I often played Arthur's "A Little Lost" on my kalimba. I had suggested to my friend Victoria Bergsman that maybe we should make a cover single or EP of Arthur's songs. She put me in touch with Verity Susman from Electrelane and I brought in Joel Gibb from the Hidden Cameras. At this point we felt there was a certain symmetry between us, we could've brought in a few more and made a tribute album but tribute albums are boring in my opinion and tend to lose focus halfway through.

Verity was the first to contribute with the music and her version of "Our Last Night Together" which almost made me cry when I heard it. The song, a quite obscure demo from the World Of Echo sessions, had passed me by unnoticed but Verity made it clearer and brighter. She plays piano like a 5 year old kid with the fingers of Erik Satie. It's playful and almost wild, ending with a whirlwind, but when she sings everything stands still.

Victoria had a bit of the opposite approach. She chose a more upbeat song, "Make 1,2," and turned it into a jazzy, hazy song. A sleepy clarinet walks by her side like an old dog. This was around the time her solo project Taken By Trees was just forming and the song became a starting point for her.

For me, the choice of song was never a question as I'd been playing "A Little Lost" on and off for three years. I managed to make my kalimba sound like drops of water and just recorded it in a few hours at home.

Joel however had more problems handing in his song, and in the end I decided to bring him over to Gothenburg and simply put him in a studio. I had heard him singing "That's Us / Wild Combination" a year before and knew it would be magic. We brought in El Perro Del Mar to sing the Jennifer Warnes parts. I was playing piano.

-- Jens Lekman

For further information on Arthur Russell, check out Audika Records.