(Independent)

Local folk duo are better than most, but fail to truly shine.

Kitchens Floor are outstanding in the genre of no wave folk. Ex-French Horns and Look!Pond guitarist Matt Kennedy is like James Chance with a nylon string, while Julia Norris keeps better time on the drums than most, but in a rather uninspired fashion. Some people will love the lethargic, belligerent spin on acoustic guitar music, while others will hate the microtonal vocals and arbitrary minimalism. I’m kind of in the middle. I love that this flies in the face of standard singer-songwriter rubbish – indeed, if an acoustic artist died every time you spun this EP it wouldn’t leave my CD player. But without the sonic barrage, the nonconformist arrangements are more annoying than confronting, and thus seem incongruous with the concept of no wave. That said, some of it sounds fantastic, with a real drug-addled drone of guitar and voice, lovingly carried home by a steady tramping of toms. But the focus mostly feels misplaced, with the subtle dynamics between the two musicians being lost more often than not.

JAKEB SMITH

Be first to comment on this article

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*