Books and covers eh? Maybe it is just me but the name Kid Kin conjures images of down-with-the-kids, rappy, cooler than thou, music, a fad which blew in on this week’s zeitgeist shortly to be replaced as another fashion is ushered in. But that’s the problem with pre-conceptions and jumping to conclusions. We all do it. It rarely gets you anywhere.
As Under A Cloud of Fret drifts from the speaker, once again I find myself happy to be proved, not just wrong but utterly and completely so. Here is music that requires me to go to my box of special words and break out the likes of lilting, cinematic, understated, chiming…and indeed charming. And from there, it somehow gets even better.
Control, which follows, is hazy and angelic, ethereal even, sounding more like the emotions that you can hear rather than any of the usual musical building blocks. A drifting swirl of ambient sounds tethered to a simple beat, wandering between minimalist and epic seemingly at the flick of a switch and with vocalist Bobo’s voice lingering somewhere between communication and beauty-for-beauty’s-sake, between words and instrument, constantly phasing between form and function.
Heron Sky is glitchy and gorgeous and Last Dance at The Nave is what ambient music would sound like if it was trying to be anthemic. How it manages to be both simultaneously is anyone’s guess, the fact that no one else has is what makes this ep so special.
There isn’t much music that you can use as a musical reference point for Kid Kin, which is always the sign of something a bit special, not to mention unique. The nearest sonic touchstone I can think of is the criminally overlooked Moon and Pollution and anyone who has had to listen to me bang on about just how great they are will understand that such a comparison is about as high an accolade as I can give.
