Nora's Pick: Katie Dey- Flood Network (2016)
Katie Dey is an immensely creative Australian artist currently involved in the "bedroom pop" scene alongside artists like Mat Cothran of Elvis Depressedly and Sam Ray of a Teen Suicide and Julia Brown. This community of musicians consistently puts out music that I like, but not always anything I think is really that interesting or progressive. A lot of their charm is that they are all very active on twitter, so I sort of feel like I know them personally sometimes. I get to see their conversations with each other and they're all small enough acts that I can talk to them after shows. That being said, this album from Katie is different. Even disregarding my bias I think this is an beautiful and fascinating album.
The album starts off with the best 1:30 song I've ever heard, flows effortlessly from song to song using stunning interludes, and by the end somehow makes me incredibly nostalgic for the last half hour I spent with it. It's layered and unpredictable and the effects on Katie's voice make it simultaneously eerie, beautiful, and sad. The mixing is also stunning so make sure to listen with some nice headphones. My favorite songs are "All", "Fear O' The Light" and "Debt", but really every second of the album is excellent. Enjoy!
I'll be upfront and say that I enjoyed this album a whole hell of a lot. I think this album was very successfully unique and a little strange. Everything on this album feels kind of small even though there's plenty of energy and vibrancy that I don't feel like bedroom pop usually has if that makes any sense. For example, Katie's voice seems like it's not put to the forefront of any tracks on this album. However, it feels like her voice wants to break through everything else going on, which makes a track like Fear O The Light so satisfying when she finally reaches a frenetic height that can do that.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at how listenable the songs are on this album for me despite being pretty busy and even off kilter at times. This album reminds me of Youth Lagoon in a lot of ways actually, but the ability to take strange clutter and make it something engaging is one of the big reasons.
My one criticism is for the interlude tracks specifically. I love albums that flow from one track to another nicely, but to separate the transitions into their own song kind of makes them feel like stuffing for the album. None of the transitional tracks stand out for me because they are clearly not meant to. I'm fine with albums having one or two of these kinds of tracks, but having them between every single song feel excessive.
This albums is so many things, among them catchy, emotional, weird and interesting af. The arrangement of the songs is similar to Clarance Clarity's maximalist approach to arranging music (I'm sure he didn't invent that, but that's what came to mind). It's sloppy, but somehow refreshing to experience. This is a very cheesy metaphor, but it's like dancing in the rain if I had to compare it to anything. I respect that Katie tries to do her own thing here, and it really doesn't come off as trying too hard to be anything in particular, or to be different.
ReplyDeleteI liked the use of the interludes, but I almost felt like it was an excuse to tack on some extra time to the shorter main songs. I dunno, maybe it was supposed to be some sort of satire on the short attention span of millennials or something. I did like how it kind of gave the album a "stream of consciousness" feel.
So yeah, I liked this album a lot and I will most likely return to it. Probably won't be on my top 10 of 2016 or anything but it's definitely an album everyone should experience this year.
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this album. There are good things about it; I like the weirdness of her vocals and I enjoyed most of the sounds. However, In think where it fell short for me is how short most of the tracks are and the lack of diversity between the tracks. It was difficult for me to pay attention (lol @ parker's comment).
ReplyDeleteI think (f7) is my favorite track. It almost has an Atoms For Peace vibe to it and I was so mad it wasn't longer. Overall, I wasn't blown away by this record but I'm glad you introduced me to it. May not be something I come back to but I can't say I hated it.
I really liked this album a ton the first time I listened to it...but strangely enough it started to kind of get old for me fairly quickly. I think that's because it reminded me of a ton of bands that I've heard before so while it is kind of a unique sound it's not really at the same time. Y'know??
ReplyDeleteI heard a lot of Connan Mockasin and Youth Lagoon in here. It's definitely an interesting record, and usually albums I love on first listen I don't start not caring about on second and third listen, but it kinda happened here.
Super glad you picked a new album because I don't listen to much new music nowadays and would have probably totally glanced over it. I knew halfway through the first track that I was going to love the album. All the songs were very dense and interesting without ever sounding harsh or cluttered.
ReplyDeleteI was a bit worried with all the interludes because usually I think they come of us unnecessary or pretentious but I thought the interludes all worked perfectly in this album, every track just blended so well and flowed into each other so nicely. Fav track Fear O The Light. Great pick Nora.