When Lido dropped his debut album, Everything, in 2016, it made #3 on our Top 10 Albums of the year. It was brutally raw and honest and its production and style blew us away with every listen. Now, four years later, he’s back with his sophomore album, PEDER.
Thematically and sonically, PEDER is much softer than Everything. There are no songs like “Crazy” or “Citi Bike,” and more songs like “You Lost Your Keys” and “Angel.” In that regard, it almost feels like a muted continuation from the end of his previous album, a comfortableness that comes through.
At the time that Lido wrote his first album, he was going through a tumultuous breakup with Halsey, which helped influence her own album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom that following year. As mentioned previously, Everything was raw and you could feel the emotion in every note and rough-around-the-edges synth.
In start contrast, PEDER is cozy. It’s warm and relaxing. It’s half singer/songwriter and half inspired producer, a state that Lido is very comfortable owning and living in. The climax of the album, “University,” a stunning and massive collaboration with Jojo, Brandon Arreaga, Col3trane, and Santell, is, like many of Lido’s constructions, a culmination of all the feelings from the previous tracks. Spiritually, it is “Citi Bike” but practically it is “Falling Down.”
It’s often said that the greatest music is created during times of great personal struggle, and in that regard, Everything is a case study. PEDER is beautiful in its own right, but time will tell if it holds up to the legacy of his debut album.
PEDER will be accompanied by a children’s book titled “The Boy On The Spaceship,” which was written by Lido and coincides with the album concept. Marking Lido’s debut as an author and set for a release later this fall, the book unravels a story of a little boy named Peder (Lido’s birth name), drifting in space on a lonely vessel. Peder accidentally stumbles upon a pirate radio station and hears music for the first time. He falls in love and tries to create his own music with the tools available to him on his spaceship. PEDER was born. The boy’s journey reflects Lido’s own experiences growing up in the Norwegian wilderness and gradually discovering the world outside his bubble.
Photo credit: Michael Drummond
