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Georgia-born drummer, New York City busker, womens' health advocate and guitar slapper, one Ovation and two hands1: meet Kaki King, Listen In's first Woman in Music.
She's been compared to guitar greats John Fahey and Leo Kottke. Her influences include Brit pop, Alex de Grassi and Stravinsky, and her depth of feel and breadth of harmony recall inklings of Bruce Cockburn. She stands an anomaly in a craft dominated by men. Kaki King releases her fourth full-length studio album, Dreaming of Revenge today.
King emerged on the scene in 2003 with Everybody Loves You (Velour). From start to finish, the debut is a showcase of her genuine talent and musicianship. "Happy as a Dead Pig in the Sun" is an agile shuffle between the airy archways of her fingers and the cold pavement of her palm against the thighs of the strings. The album-closer "Fortuna" reveals a balance between the weight of harmony and the delicacy of texture, and hints at the tenor of her sophomore release.
Legs to Make Us Longer forfeits the frenetic energy of urban life for a longer horizon. It opens with resonant chords that seem to ring out in all directions, like a harp on a prairie: thirty-eight strokes of a finger. Thirty-eight strokes of a brush echoed in the sneaky driving drums on "Doing the Wrong Thing," a track you might recognize from 2007's epic biopic Into the Wild. Perhaps her most breathtaking feat is her perfect caress of the lap steel in "Can the Gwot Save Us."
In closing Legs, King preludes her upcoming album with a little plaintive singing. Her voice sounds young in "My Insect Life": it glints and flutters up above the old roots of her guitar work. That bookend finds its pair in "Yellowcake", our introduction to ...Until We Felt Red. This album was vocal-centric and incorporates a greater variety of instruments than her previous work. Trumpet and vibraphone give a free jazz-type feel to much of the album while her electric guitar, loaded with effects, brings out hues of brit pop and shoegazer and Pavement.
Which brings us to 2008. Something different is happening with Dreaming of Revenge. Kaki's previous works are guitar albums, but her newest release is anything but. Vernal vocals and melodramatic string section forays by guest arranger Yuval Semo leave the listener with the sense that she's been studying early Sunny Day Real Estate. Alternative rock spills through the seams of "2 O'Clock". Her signature steel-wound tickling is still present, but takes a backseat to brawny electric guitar melodies further beefed with Rhodes in "Bone Chaos in the Castle".
The sound is a departure from Kaki's work up to this point, but nevertheless offers her audience an altogether pleasant listening experience. Swaths of lap steel and flawless picking are inarguably the most mature voices on Dreaming of Revenge, though it's plain that time and devotion will reveal for her songwriting and arranging the same brilliant plumage that springs from between the frets.
Dreaming of Revenge is out today on Velour Records. You can pick it up at Amazon or bundled with a bonus track (oooh!) on iTunes.
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1 GraspTheRune at RYM.
This is the kickoff for Listen In's Women In Music series. Stay tuned! This is a bi-weekly feature.
© Ryan Stolte-Sawa 2008 for Listen In. Some Rights Reserved.
