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Kaki King : Legs To Make Us Longer
© 2004 Sony Records
Kaki King is a feisty, five-foot, funny, outspoken Atlanta transplant who now lives in New York, a city whose energy is almost equal to her own.
On her album, Legs to Make Us Longer (Epic), she blazes through a set of original works with an intensity that reflects her world -- the subway platform gigs, the late shifts at the Mercury Lounge, the surreptitious intermission entrances into Lincoln Center to catch some Stravinsky
Her music is as contradictory as the city itself. On the first track, "Frame," her guitar tolls like bells beneath an iron sky. Right after that, "Playing With Pink Noise" dashes in and out of traffic, with pistons pumping. On "Ingots" a steady, four-beat thump keeps time, a pulse beating as she runs through vistas of sound.
For King, the guitar isn't just a reverie machine; it's a percussion instrument, just like the drums she played with her high school band.
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Kaki King : Dreaming of Revenge
Instrumental
When Kaki King went into the studio in upstate New York to record the tracks for her fourth album, Dreaming Of Revenge, her producer, Malcolm Burn, had one condition: “He said, ‘If someone can’t be sawing a log in half and whistling along to the song, I don’t want it on the record,’Burn’s mandate was just the push King needed to make her most accessible CD yet. “Even though half the tracks are instrumentals, I feel like I’m writing pop songs,” she says. “We really concentrated on the melodies. Everything I write tends to be dense and chordal, but this time the idea was to layer the challenging guitar work under very simple, beautiful melodies. I really wanted them to be memorable.”
Kaki King : Until We Felt Red
Instrumental
Kaki King bests herself and defies expectation again, ditching her acoustic for an electric, lap steel, and perhaps the most unexpected instrument of all: her own voice; disarmingly winsome and sweet for a woman with so much attitude. The haunting melodies are sadder, the lush orchestrations are fuller, and the sharp edges can cut.
Kaki King : Everybody Loves You
Solo Acoustic Guitar
Thumping bass lines, tapping melodies, and slapping percussion on her guitar, Kaki King is a one-woman force sent to wreak acoustic havoc. Though her style and tunings are suggestive of Michael Hedges, Kaki is more about the L Train to Williamsburg than placid landscapes.