Album Review: Katy Kirby - 'Blue Raspberry'
On 'Blue Raspberry', Katy Kirby finds beauty in unexpected places, whilst losing none of the effortless chamber-pop charm of her acclaimed first record.
I was driving home for a wedding, fresh on the sour taste of a breakup, when I heard Katy Kirby's 'Portals' for the first time. Maybe I was looking for permission to be sad, although I'm reticent to call any music sad. Songs don't tell, they just speak and 'Portals' spoke to me in that moment.
It is Katy Kirby's deft command of language; pure, sometimes cold vocal delivery and atmospheric arrangements that first pulled me in. These attributes have been polished on the new record. A sophomore release can be a daunting prospect, but Kirby has taken the opportunity to build on her already strong voice with sure-footedness and consistency of theme.
Whilst on 'Cool Dry Place', she hid some of the purity of her writing/performance under guitar feedback or dense arrangements, things feel a little less shy here. Whilst writing these songs Kirby said she felt "less embarrassed about just wanting to write really gorgeous songs". 'Salt Crystal', one of the most delicate tracks on the album, exemplifies this. Strings and horns delicately punctuate but never distract. 'Redemption Arc', the opening track, sways like an old ballroom ballad. Here Kirby stands 'for a toast' to a partner's constant need for reconciliation, littering lyrical ingenuity left and right: 'It comes with the territory, sweet pastoral imagery / but it's just not polite to call me terror incognito'.
Kirby is not just a great lyricist, however. She has MELODIES too. 'Cubic Zirconia' is an instantly charming odyssey. 'Blue Raspberry' whispers in your ear with delicate candy-sweet nothings and 'Party of the Century' has bounced around my brain since its early release. 'Wait Listen' is a lilting, Cohen-esque ballad. The bass, the guitars, the drums... they all seem to have their own melodic threads.
Throughout 'Blue Raspberry', the whole ensemble pushes and pulls like an organism. 'Hand to Hand', with its Blake Mills-y rhythm section is strung with little instrumental pearls. 'Fences' treats the piano as the percussion instrument it is. The hammers perforate the songs' atmosphere as much as the notes themselves. Kirby is no stranger to using room ambience or the parts that might otherwise be 'edited out'. The hollow space of 'Alexandria', for example, is underscored by feedback. The whole song threatens to explode at any moment with swathes of lap-steel and siren-like backing vocals. 'Redemption Arc', too, feels like one take recorded in one room.
'Table', the album closer, harks back to Kirby's upbringing in a fundamentally religious community. Her irony-ridden lyrics are reminiscent of another artist with a similar background, Josh Tillman (Father John Misty). Elsewhere, on 'Drop Dead' Kirby is similarly tongue-in-cheek, making reference to the diminishing market value of roses. The punchy vocals and guitars are perfectly married with one of the most satisfying grooves on the record. I don't dance, not ever... but I was considering it.
'Blue Raspberry', then, is a statement from Kirby. She refuses to fall into the minefield of tropes available to the modern songwriter. Instead she writes with a sharp sense of self-awareness and musicality that makes a record (one ironically about artificiality) feel organic, honest and, above all, truly authentic.
Words by Joe Boon
