When Positivity Seems Hard To Reach

King Krule @ Bowery Ballroom 9/9/2013
Has This Hit? / Ceiling / Bleak Bake / Ocean Bed / Grey Scale / A Lizard State / Krokodile / The Noose of Jah City / Baby Blue / Out Getting Ribs / Easy Easy // Rock Bottom

King Krule “Easy Easy” (Radio 1 Session)

In all the images I’d seen of Archy Marshall before I saw King Krule for the first time last night, he seemed sorta gawky and awkward. It seemed amazing and odd that a voice so adult and weathered was coming from a kid like that. But in person, at least last night, it was not incongruous at all. He was a stylish, graceful presence, and almost frighteningly intense. He sings with an urgency and investment that’s hard to fake – it’s one of those things where you can just tell that he’s tapping into something raw and painful. He’s like Fiona Apple in this way. She’s rooted in jazz and early R&B too, and an approach to singing that is all about varying phrasing with their feeling in the moment. His band is similar. They’re incredibly sharp but very loose, gliding around Marshall’s songs getting in his way. It’s all very fluid, and the raw sound of it is just gorgeous.

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