![]() She distils her disgust at her own post-breakup malaise with perfectly understated images: "The hair that's in my shower drain/ Has been clogging up my home," she sings on "Dixie". "Mouth ajar watching cuties hit the half pipe/ I only feel half ripe/ Around healthier folk," she sings on "Healthier Folk". And like her old roommate, she often obscures her intentions between appealingly twisty language. Kempner has a knack for these odd little about-turns that elevate Dry Food above the usual plainspoken acoustic indie fare. Frantic drums force the song somewhere agitated and ascendant, but instead of bursting into some bright new phrase, the furor falls away like a captivating slo-mo bellyflop. Kempner sings dreamily about her worst self-defeating impulses, but is stirred from her reverie by a divine revelation that her life is becoming "a pretty lie". It's followed by "Cinnamon", which takes the opposite tack, hooked around the kind of amiable, waterlogged psych burble that Mac DeMarco noodles in his sleep. ![]() ![]() But like her former camp counselor and roommate, Speedy Ortiz's Sadie Dupuis, Kempner never lets a sad jam wallow: she kicks the end of the song into shape with a zippy electric guitar motif and some awkward, itchy squall. Its sound captures the Herculean efforts required to survive the ensuing slump: "All I need's a little sleep and I'll be good to clean and eat," she sings in a medicated sigh on "Easy", her acoustic guitar rising and dipping with the methodical pace of someone trying to make a new routine stick. Dry Food is partially a product of the 21-year-old Boston-dwelling songwriter's first big breakup-the deeper kind of solitude of having known and lost someone. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |