Monday, May 3, 2010

REVIEW: White Hinderland - Kairos

7.5 out of 10

White Hinderland is the genius of one Ms. Casey Dienel. Her music could be (I suppose) classified as "Indie Electronic" mixed with a few chill/Jazzy atmospheres. A specific comparison that comes to mind would be Little Dragon had they gone a slightly (just slightly) more Dream Pop(ed) (think Cocteau Twins) route.. "Kairos" is the second official album, first for Dead Oceans, and to me her strongest offering to date.

The first track off of "Kairos" features a vocal sample that, every time I listen to, stays in my head for days. Listen to it once, you'll know what I'm talking about. The track after that sounds like a modern psychedelic ditty that should also stain your ears with catchiness. After that the rest of the tracks continue in that tradition, "catchy and delightful"/genre bouncing-rrific while maintaining one cohesive sound. Too me it seems sort of hard to slap a genre on Ms. Dienel's music, it just sounds unique to White Hinderland only (so far). Still though there is a bit of familiarity there that I think most music lovers will fall headphones over heels for. As for some of the sounds found within "Kairos"; gorgeous vocal layers (the best part of this album), sparsely dispersed guitar pluckings (sometimes acoustic, sometimes electric), tons of terrific electronic samples (that range from Dub to Industrial to etc.), and some ghostly atmospheres that set the mood for hazy and mysterious. I honestly can't picture anyone listening to this and not picking at least one song that sounds great to them.

I like this one a lot, it goes from breezy to modern to poppy with every other song. I would recommend this to anyone with non-faulty ear drums..

Standout Tracks: Icarus (so catchy), Moon Jam, Bow & Arrow (I love when the drums and bass come in on this one..), Amsterdam, Thunderbird (my second fav track), Cataract, Huron (tis nice) Yeah. I pretty much just listed all of the tracks...

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