When my dad was a teenager, absent minded and living in Alaska, he met a short-haired woman whose music he learned by ear — whose music is in my earliest memories.
She stood on a makeshift stage in a forgettable someone’s backyard. In her arms rested a strange guitar he’d never seen — a multitude of tiny sound holes carved into the top left corner of the body — “an Ovation,” my dad and I can now happily identify wide-eyed. It’s a deep sound we both love.
Kaki King’s guitar.
Composer and guitarist Kaki King released the EP “Tutto Passa,” — Italian for “it will pass,” — on April 10. Ever since her first album released in 2003, her music style has changed from acoustic, polyrhythmic and intimate songs to a new, hyper-transient mix of electronic drums and 70s style synths. While I could appreciate the album on its own, knowing the emotion King poured into her earlier sound makes me miss what was — or rather, what could have been — of this EP.
The EP, like most of her discography, flows perfectly in order. It opens with a delayed and chirpy guitar in “Things We Do,” followed by a ticking, electric kit. It’s a driving rhythm, one that carries throughout the EP but only slows the further you listen. Kaki King’s sound resembled the work of ambient musician Mort Garrison and alternative ambient artist Aphex Twin.
I enjoyed listening, but I kept searching for the sounds that made me fall in love with her music from the beginning, and I only found that in the songs “At the End Time a Dog Asleep” and “This Too Shall Pass.” “At the End Time a Dog Asleep” has a mellow vibe with a delayed and deep guitar, followed by a dissonant, but beautiful, steady trumpet. Throughout the EP, the original depth and heaviness of her earlier music was absent — almost as if there was little inspiration — but in this last song, I was moved to tears. This sounds like young Kaki King!
“This Too Shall Pass” — a song I originally deemed my least favorite based on first listen — made me both cringe and want to skip, but within the middle of the song, King implemented a short segment of her playing an acoustic riff, and my muscles untensed. I heard the distinctive hammer-ons and alternate tuning I craved hearing again for the first time. On my second listen, I loved the song.
The rest of “Tutto Passa” was an easy listen that made me want to dance, but lacked inspiration. The original angst and acoustic-buzzes King inspired many with are gone, and I felt exactly how the song sounded — just OK.
Nevertheless, listeners and I must keep in mind that as a musician grows, so does their art, and while King’s newer music differs from the nostalgic, off-beat style etched in my soul, her new music is objectively impressive.
