... Until We Felt Red

Kaki King

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Kaki King is an incredibly unique and virtuosic guitar player. Not only does she have a beautiful finger-picked style, but she often incorporates these rhythmic techniques like striking the body of the guitar or the fretboard; creating this whole other dimension that you don't typically hear in solo guitar music. All the techniques and sounds meld together to form one very complex, but musically stunning piece. On her third record, however, King pulls away from the solo guitar virtuosity just a little bit to explore her voice, other genres, and different instrumentation. The result is perhaps a record that comes across a little less focused and more of a mixed-bag. Although for me, I think having the record constantly changing to different styles and instrumental arrangements kept me interested all throughout.

The album starts with Yellowcake, a whimsical finger-picked tune that is supported by some lap steel and some soft percussion. King's voice isn't particularly strong as she mostly sings in whispers, but at no point do I feel like it feels out of place. Her voice also makes a prominent appearance on the smooth jazz inspired I Never Said I Love You, but it's the guitar playing here that really steals the show. While her solo compositions have always impressed me, hearing King demonstrate her jazz and R&B chops on this track is really mind-blowing to me. Another one of my favourite tracks on here, Jessica, is another real change of pace. It has this sunset-kissed, shoegaze vibe that I really love. Compositionally, it isn't anything flashy, but when you are used to using all your brain processing power figuring out how she is playing all of this, it's a nice change of pace to just get swallowed into all the layers of reverbed guitar.

The musical exploration continues on tracks like You Don't Have to Be Afraid and These Are the Armies of the Tyrannized. Both these tracks go in somewhat of a post-rock direction and are the two longest tracks on the record. The former is a multi-phased odyssey of a track while the latter sounds like it could be a cut off of an early Mogwai record. While I've touched on most of the musical detours that King explores on this record, there are also a few cuts that are a little more in line with her previous work; except with a few more instrumental embellishments mixed in. What I love about these particular tracks is that they conjur these incredibly vivid settings in my head as I'm listening. For example, First Brain puts me in the middle of a hazy, never ending forest where the trees reach the sky. While listening to Ahuvati, I can imagine myself at a desert oasis where the oppressive sun (portrayed by the distorted violin wails) beats down on me.

I enjoyed just about every track on this record to some extent and the only real gripe I have is with the drums on the title track and I Never Said I Love You. As the drums get louder and more intense on these tracks in particular, they start to sound really unnatural, especially during the fast drum fills. However, since I am a drummer, I am perhaps a little more picky than your average listener. All in all, this record is probably my favourite of hers despite not being the most intricate in terms of guitar performance and composition.