“You sort of have to get close in this place, whether you want it or not,” Anna Ternheim said as she carefully swiveled around the edge of the tiny stage at Joe’s Pub on Monday night, maneuvering herself behind the piano. “I really like that,” she added. Ternheim, a Swedish singer-songwriter now based in the East Village, has played more spacious rooms than Joe’s Pub—both here in the U.S., where she’s opened for Lykke Li, El Perro del Mar and Kristin Hersh, and back in Europe, where Ternheim racked up Swedish Grammy awards for each of her first two albums.

Turned out the close quarters and intimacy of Joe’s Pub ideally suited Ternheim’s lithe, penetrating voice, moody storytelling and stripped-down instrumentation. Read more »