Kate Simko has always had an odd relationship with functionalism and restraint. Her formidable minimal house tracks have never really blossomed into bangers, instead steadily feeding off their own edging tension. (Which, obviously, could be just as cathartic or thrilling in its own way.) But whether you attribute it to her much-discussed classically-trained background or not, the Chicago producer is defined by her studied subtlety more than any other trait, with bits of classic house boogie poking out of her carefully built structures.
Those Chicago touchstones have made it overground on her debut Lights Out. The rather brief "Beneath" wraps a sleek organ riff around heavily manipulated percussion and a linear bassline unlike the writhing monsters that usually lurk beneath her tracks. It signals a move away from stuffy claustrophobia for Simko, a move that comes correct on early album highlights like first single "Mind On You"—one of Simko's most accessible tracks, all cool-blue chords—or especially "Flight Into BA." The latter is stunningly melodic, hearkening back to the stately majesty of 2006's "Strumm," taking all the elements of disco—ropey bass, horns, strings, falsetto vocals—and meticulously re-arranging them so they fit into the album's sparse, late-night feel.
Unfortunately, Simko isn't able to repeat that particular trick for the entire LP. The further down the spiral she tries to go with her new reductionist spirit, the more she ends up wallowing in the kind of mnml lassitude that her previous work so narrowly avoided. The stodgy "Mira Vos" hints at this, barely scraping by with its springy Pronsato-lite bristle, while "Bikini Atoll" just fails, awkwardly foisting a simplistic drum track onto dissonant see-sawing. That's not to say she can't find a happy medium: the percussion-heavy "Last Breath" manages to pound itself out of the near-fatal arrhythmia, like a spruced up m_nus jam. But when compared to something like "Mind On You," even these tracks feel frustratingly incomplete.
The album closes in promising fashion with "Had It All," arguably the perfect marriage of her minimal past and her new explicitly Chicago direction, as finger snaps, elegant drums and soft vocals swirl and churn in a closed-circuit push-pull flurry. It's an anti-climactic end to an up-and-down album, one that seems to hint as much at diminishing returns as it does unbridled potential. I'm tempted to just say "pick a side," because as Lights Out proves, being split down the middle isn't the best look for Simko.
Those Chicago touchstones have made it overground on her debut Lights Out. The rather brief "Beneath" wraps a sleek organ riff around heavily manipulated percussion and a linear bassline unlike the writhing monsters that usually lurk beneath her tracks. It signals a move away from stuffy claustrophobia for Simko, a move that comes correct on early album highlights like first single "Mind On You"—one of Simko's most accessible tracks, all cool-blue chords—or especially "Flight Into BA." The latter is stunningly melodic, hearkening back to the stately majesty of 2006's "Strumm," taking all the elements of disco—ropey bass, horns, strings, falsetto vocals—and meticulously re-arranging them so they fit into the album's sparse, late-night feel.
Unfortunately, Simko isn't able to repeat that particular trick for the entire LP. The further down the spiral she tries to go with her new reductionist spirit, the more she ends up wallowing in the kind of mnml lassitude that her previous work so narrowly avoided. The stodgy "Mira Vos" hints at this, barely scraping by with its springy Pronsato-lite bristle, while "Bikini Atoll" just fails, awkwardly foisting a simplistic drum track onto dissonant see-sawing. That's not to say she can't find a happy medium: the percussion-heavy "Last Breath" manages to pound itself out of the near-fatal arrhythmia, like a spruced up m_nus jam. But when compared to something like "Mind On You," even these tracks feel frustratingly incomplete.
The album closes in promising fashion with "Had It All," arguably the perfect marriage of her minimal past and her new explicitly Chicago direction, as finger snaps, elegant drums and soft vocals swirl and churn in a closed-circuit push-pull flurry. It's an anti-climactic end to an up-and-down album, one that seems to hint as much at diminishing returns as it does unbridled potential. I'm tempted to just say "pick a side," because as Lights Out proves, being split down the middle isn't the best look for Simko.
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Published /
Wed / 22 Jun 2011 -
Words /
Andrew Ryce -
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Tracklist /
01. Beneath
02. Flight Into BA feat. by Kevin Knapp
03. Mira Vos
04. Mind On You feat. Brenda De-Noto Gardner
05. Monochrome
06. Last Breath
07. Bikini Atoll
08. Cairo
09. Machine's Mantra
10. Had It All feat. Dilo
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