These are brittle times — let’s be honest, not much feels particularly sparkling. And sexiness, the good kind, the compelling, non-ordinary kind, has been in short supply in music in recent years. But it’s back — rediscovered, no less, in hot-ass Denmark. On one side, there’s Big City Life, the Smerz album that flirts and teases with playful lightness (»Baby, can I see you naked? (Please?)/Even though I love how you dress«). On the other, Lifetime, Erika de Casier’s fourth album and her first entirely self-written and self-produced.
On it, de Casier shapes her indie R&B into something more trip-hop-inflected, channeling the slow-burning makeout hours of the 1990s — as if Tricky had produced Janet Jackson. It’s sensual, sensual, sensual. A record for the esoteric baddies, as the Resident Advisor reviewer aptly put it: the kind of music a group of girlfriends would put on a Bluetooth speaker in Marseille after a long day at the harbour, before heading out.
Self-empowerment is no longer a statement for Erika de Casier — it’s second nature. Even in the interactions with her lyrical you, there’s a deep-rooted ease and maturity. A fresh lightness and freedom unfolds in the way these songs approach intimacy: “I can be real nice to you / it’s the easiest thing to do.” And really, what could be more erotic than that?
Lifetime
