Kero Kero Bonito, “Time ‘n’ Place” (Polyvinyl, 2018)Sarah is the singer of this UK group and is the daughter of a Japanese mother and British father, and while her life experience could just as well have resulted in a deep commitment to Delta blues or Flamenco, in this case she’s created a delightfully bright and […]
Rilo Kiley, “The Execution of All Things” (Saddle Creek, 2002)One of my very favorite albums of this century/millennium. This captures Jenny Lewis at the perfect point between her stark, folk-inflected early stuff and the glossier, more glam-rocking work that came later, and the songs hit right on target with their story of being lost in […]
David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights, “Left by Soft” (12XV, 20120)The founder of great New Zealand postpunk/indie pioneers returns with an album as fine as any of his solo work. His brand of jangle-psych-pop, simultaneously warm and estranged, is designed to age well.Try A/1, A/3, B/25/5/12
Killdozer, “Twelve Point Buck”/”Little Baby Buntin’ “ (Touch & Go, 1989/1987)From Wisconsin, they played like Midwest Kids reared on Foghat’s heavy blues grooves, then re-wired by the Birthday Party’s gnarled, shuddering Frankenstein-restructuring of those very grooves. The result was a kind of noise-rock as contemporary electric folk-blues of weird rest-belt social decay. A gargantuan racket, […]
Killdozer, “Uncompromising War On Art Under The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat” (Touch And Go, 1994) [CD includes “Burl” EP (Touch And Go, 1986)]Killdozer were one of the Great Lakes region’s most distinguished post-punk sludge-rock behemoths – picture someone blasting Black Sabbath’s first album in a building being demolished by a wrecking ball, while the foreman […]
Kim Jung Mi, “Now” (Lion Productions, 2011; original release 1973)Written/produced by late ‘60s/early ‘70s South Korean psych guitar guru Shin Joong Hyun (see the comp in the CD New Bin), this is lush, oceanic acid-folk from a chanteuse with a tremulous but powerfully resonant voice. The Korean folk usages blend seamlessly into the Western ones […]
Carole King, “Tapestry” (Ode, 1971)Deservedly beloved early solo album from the woman who wrote a lot of the classic early-‘60s girl-group hits. This unites the sparkling pop perfection of that stuff with the compositional and personal opening-out of the singer-songwriter era she (and this album) helped inaugurate.Try 1, 3, 4.2/18/13
Kinks, “Face to Face” (Castle; original release, 1966)Their “Rubber Soul,” i. e., the moment they definitively broke free of their chunky Maximum-Chuck-Berry Britbeat roots and headed toward something more lyrical, free-ranging and strange. But where the Beatles took their audience with them through the looking glass, the Kinks wandered off alone into their own enchanted […]
Kluster, “Zwei Osterei” (Bureau B, 2012; original release 1971).Pioneering German avant-rock, pre-Krautrock even. No electronics, just a raging, hypnotic tribal-noise assault that anticipates industrial while making most of it seem tame by comparison. Try 2.1/13/13
Sophia Knapp, “Into the Waves” (Drag City, 2012)This label’s intriguingly arty take on ‘70s revivalism continues with this item. Fleetwood Mac-like champagne’n’cocaine-soaked singer-songwriter pop, but in a spirit of detached formalism. A good listen in any case.Try 2, 6, 75/5/12