Lykke Li

Wounded Rhymes LL Recordings/Warner***

Who says travel doesn't broaden the mind? Sweden's Lykke Li has spent most of her life moving from one exotic location to the next – from her childhood in Stockholm to Portugal and then onwards to Morocco, Nepal, India and Brooklyn. Such a range of cultural influences has made its mark, not only on her 2008 debut, Youth Novels(which thrummed to the beats of singer-songwriter confessions, folk music and hip-hop), but also on this superior follow-up. Now based in Los Angeles and living a reasonably solitary life, Li has turned to loneliness for inspiration, and you can hear how well she channels this into songs that reference all manner of despair, from the heartache girl-pop of Love Out of Lustto the spectral swoon of Sadness Is a Blessing. It isn't all one-note, either, as Li veers from sparse ( Unrequited Love) to full-on ( Get Some) to points in between ( I Know Places). See lykkeli.com

Download tracks: Love Out of Lust, Sadness Is a Blessing, Unrequited Love