Tehe... I typed "sportify" instead of spotify at first. Anywhos.
So, K.flay has come highly recommended by a few friends. She kicked off Bonnaroo this year, and was the first summer ticket I bought this year when I found out I couldn't make the festival itself - July is when I'll be making up for missing it.
Kristine Flaherty is from outside of Chicago and started her career while attending Stanford University. She's been traveling a lot, opening for people like Passion Pit, 3OH!3, and others, but always working alone. She says that she spent a lot of time just messing around, and it wasn't until her first mixtape that she felt an actual direction - a mindset; a direction. A lot of places note that her isolation is a central theme for her, which is scary and comforting all at once.
Final thing before we launch into the basement-produced, self-titled EP that's available on Spotify: The bio on the Roo app says "Flaherty may write about apathy, but she's anything but apathetic." Let's do this.
"No Duh" starts things up with some pretty interesting loops of a simple "la." She raps, if you didn't know. This kind of isn't the sound I was expecting looking at the pictures of this girl, but it sure as hell in interesting. The rapping is completely steady, and the breaths are calculated throughout - and she gets a lot out in-between. Pretty interesting. A little too close to Nicki Minaj for my taste, but just different enough to be much more tolerable.
She takes things to a different electronic level for "Messin With My Head." This time, there's a definite verse-chorus structure to the song, and it's based (seemingly) off a boy-girl story. She takes a stand though - "fuck you and everything you said - it was all lies, messin' with my head." Kind of a killer kiss-off song if I do say so. The beats amazingly looped, with just a really cool way about it. It's catchy, but not annoyingly so, like, it won't necessarily be stuck in my head later, but I don't hate hearing it again and again right now.
Heard an actually good song in a club lately? Me either, but that's because I haven't been to a lot of clubs lately. "So Far, So Maybe" would be a kick-ass club song with lyrics that are kicking someone's ass to the curb. I should pay more attention to the lyrics here - they're good and crazy. There' a chorus, of sorts. The only reason we know that at all is that it repeats and adds one voice. Otherwise, the lyrics are friging insane and move by fast enough to make you go, "wait, what'd she say?" and maybe laugh in the midst.
"Anywhere But Here" is sort of... boring? I don't mean to offend with that at all. I think it's just the video game beat in the background that I can't ignore, and it seems to drag the whole track down. I also think we got a little to used to partying with the other tracks. Usually I love tracks with this kind of theme - talking about flying away to somewhere else. This one's just not doing it though.
This is the first EP in a while that I find myself sad to only have one more track of to listen to - the mark of a really good artist, for a pleasant change. "Acetaminophen" has got to have some heavy effects running through those wires. There's no natural sound from a mic going on here until the verse, and even then, the sounds coming from the back are totally canned. Don't get me wrong - sort of cool. I don't think I'm in the right state to enjoy it properly - it's be better about 3-4 drinks in or so. But overall a good whatever-you-want track that's going to keep everyone moving for sure. This is just crazy!!
Added to My Playlist:
- "Messin With My Head"
- "So Fast, So Maybe"