Sondre Lerche

Sondre Lerche has the pop sensibility of someone composing in the 1960s, not a young man who's been alive barely two decades and admits to an obsession with A-Ha. His songs sound like they come from a musician weaned on Tin Pan Alley and rock and roll, both influences funneled into grand symphonies with pop melodies and rock attitude that would have made Burt Bacharach, Henry Mancini and Phil Spector arm wrestle for a chance at collaboration. He's like Brian Wilson minus the weariness, a sunnier Elliott Smith, Wayne Coyne without the drugs, Elvis Costello falling in love for the first time, exhilarated and without cynicism. Lerche's songs are lush, but never crowded, with the subtle touches such as saxes, strings and bongos--a sound hard to replicate live, but worth the opportunity.