Tove Lo – “source of life”

There’s a line in the press notes for Tove Lo’s new album ESTRUS that stopped me longer than anything intended to describe how the record sounds. Tove says she wrote what she needed to write, not how she wanted to be perceived. That distinction could probably support an entire semester of therapy. How much of adulthood is actually figuring out who we are, and how much is getting increasingly sophisticated at presenting the version we’ve decided makes the most sense?

“source of life,” the album’s closing track, isn't particularly interested in helping. Tove moves between feral and fragile, numb and ecstatic, while wrestling with a more practical contradiction: the part of her that still wants to stay out all night versus the part wondering whether it's time to stay home and have kids. Maybe adulthood isn't resolving the contradictions. Maybe it's getting comfortable enough to stop demanding that they resolve themselves.

That’s really the proposition of ESTRUS. Tove calls the title primal, describing her mind and body as wanting different things, “wanting everything,” with “a lot of feelings, no solutions.” Which might be a considerably more useful description of being alive than most of the advice we've been given. Two things can be true. You can love where you are and wonder about somewhere else. Want stability and still want the night out. Know yourself better than ever and remain completely capable of confusing yourself.

And “source of life” can still absolutely bang while we're having our existential crisis. Very Tove Lo.