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Kaki King : Until We Felt Red
© 2006 Velour Recordings
Kaki King has never been one for convention. Her third album (following 2003's "Everybody Loves You" on Velour and 2004's "Legs To Make Us Longer" on Epic) is certainly no exception. Over the last few years, she's enjoyed well-earned status as the zeit-girl of instrumental acoustic guitar. Here she 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.
Much of this can be attributed to the new sonic palate Kaki brings to the platter: distorted pedal steel, pounding drums, ethereal trumpet, dots, loops, bleeps and other indefinable percussion sounds, and her own voice, disarmingly winsome and sweet for a woman with as much attitude as King. Kaki made a great call in seeking out producer John McEntire (Tortoise, Stereolab, Sea & Cake), who engineered and produced the album at his Soma Studios in Chicago. McEntire called forth some of the sweeter bursts of ear candy on the disc, and the creative chemistry between the two is apparent. Kaki King will be supporting ...Until We Felt Red with extensive touring in the US throughout the summer and fall, including a weekly NYC residency in July.
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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 : Legs To Make Us Longer
Solo Acoustic Guitar
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
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.