Home » Feature » Events and TV
Singing the praises of China’s city of towers
Print Edition
SHANGHAI and its landscape of towering skyscrapers are the subject of Danish electro-pop singer Lydmor’s latest single “Money Towers.”
Speaking from Copenhagen as she prepares for a seven-city Asia tour that stops at Shanghai’s ALL tomorrow, the singer-songwriter admits to being “completely blown away” by the song’s success.
“It’s been played on radios all over the world,” she says. “A lot of blogs have written about it and I really feel like all eyes are on me. I didn’t dare dream it would go this well.”
With a name that is Danish for “mother of sound,” Lydmor has racked up an impressive number of accolades since beginning her career as an 18 year old where she toured Denmark in a mobile home where she lived, created music and played concerts.
While she’s gained underground acclaim for her solo albums and drawn comparisons to Imogen Heap, Bjork and Kate Bush, as well as collaborations with Bon Homme (singer-bassist Tomas Høffding of Danish electronic pop trio WhoMadeWho) and the Royal Danish Ballet, Ldymor describes her upcoming album, as “my first album ever in some ways.”
“After my last album ‘Y,’ so many things in my inside and in my life started changing,” she explains. “I feel like I evolved very consciously into something else. I embraced the part of myself that wants to create big things and the way I worked changed.”
Set for release in September, “I Told You I’d Tell Them Our Story” is heavily inspired by several months that Lydmor spent living in Shanghai two years ago.
“There is something so eternally mysterious about that city, something that is both dark and light. It’s a mystery I’ll never solve. I wanted to capture the feeling of that on my album,” she says.
While she’s had memorable past performances in Shanghai, including a spellbinding 2014 show that finished with her performing in the middle of Yuyintang’s floor, Lydmor admits her decision to come to Shanghai “started as a whim, a crazy thought, but then increasingly became something unavoidable.”
“Moving to Shanghai was completely different than what I expected. I had this idea in my head that I was going to be all alone in the big city and have a lot of time to think in my solitude. But what happened was that I tripped into this super inspiring group of people, and suddenly this crazy story started to unfold around me.”
“A lot of is connected to the club The Mansion and a certain group of ravers. We discussed so many interesting things like the meaning of life and the future of everything. I feel like I was a different person when I returned to Europe. Shanghai changed me — in a very beautiful way.”
That desire to spark conversation was apparent at Lydmor’s performance at February’s GAFFA Awards, Denmark’s most prestigious music awards show. Her performance of “Money Towers,” began with a screening of misogynistic quotes recently made by media members.
“I wanted to do a feminist statement and create some noise,” she explains. “After the #Metoo movement, I noticed a sort of backlash in the media where people started saying things like ‘feminism has gone too far,’ and I just couldn’t agree less. We need feminism. We need to have these hard conversations.”
The GAFFA performance was also notable for Lydmor’s striking use of light, which she promises will be unveiled further when she presents her new stage show on her upcoming Asia tour.
“I’m working very closely with a light designer and I promise you it is going to be unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” she says. “I’m using light in a completely new way to create the sense of drama the music needs.”
Date: April 19, 8:30pm
Tickets: 80 yuan
Venue: ALL
Address: 2/F, 17 Xiangyang Rd N.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
