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While reviewing the Polaroid I’d snapped, Lykke Li declared, “I look like a little child prostitute!”

I didn’t argue with the Swedish beauty and watched as the corners of her mouth turned into a mischievous smile.

We were backstage at the Wiltern in her Pepto-pink dressing room and she was playing the part of luscious, indie-pop princess to a tee. Her debut album, Youth Novels, was co-produced by Björn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John) and when asked about their collaboration she asks, “Who’s Peter Bjorn?”

“No, no, I’m kidding,” she laughs. “I got Bjorn’s phone number from one of the craziest guys I know in Stockholm and then I called him up and we had coffee and I convinced him to work with me.”

Some have speculated that the album was about a previous relationship, but she insists that, “it wasn’t a relationship. I mean, some songs were about that particular man, but it was more about being young.”

“And the next album is about my deathbed. If the first album was about youth, well, this next one is about dying – getting old and dying.”

Lykke Li is full of contradictions. She is laughing and playful one moment, and then sharp and nearly impossible to read, the next. Her stage presence is no different.

She is serious and detached, hiding her face away from her adoring fans while playing Time Flies at the piano, and then moving immediately into Dance Dance Dance, in which she confidently bangs a drum stick against a tambourine held high over her head.

She dirty dances low at the front of the stage connecting with the front row audience, a move which is met by intense shrieking and screaming; Her fans filling up the theatre with more noise than what their numbers actually warrant.

If nothing else, she is a true showman – flitting around the stage in her black duster and feather boa in a performance art piece of sorts – playing the part of madwoman as she crashes the previously mentioned drum stick into a cymbal before hitting a high note in one of her electronic pop tunes.

And does Ms. Li have any other creative outlets outside of writing and singing?

“I do a good carrot cake,” she deadpans.

DETAILS:

The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 380-5005

Polaroid by Aubrey Nicole.