Konkord 141
In Your Face
KMET
10 songs collected in a labyrinth of fragile poetry.
To break up and start anew. Trying to reveal new perspectives when stuck in dense fog. Looking out for better prospects. Reaching for every little twig. Employ persevererance and confidence. Touch the moist soil, get grounded. Create warmth from dust and earth, from blood and emptiness. Find stoicism amidst loud sirens and blue lights.
KMET: a guitar player extraordinaire. A versatile composer and improviser between avant-garde and jazz. A resourceful creator of music for theater and the big screen. And a singer-songwriter who has given this supposedly outdated musical persona a new narrative for the 21st century. In this role, the charismatic Austrian musician has already released three albums on Konkord. It began with the 2007 debut “Electric Songs”, where the old concept of the one-man band was reconstructed for the age of sampled loops and digital production means.
The music is created from guitars and harmonized voices, warm analog bass sounds, floating keyboards, and simple processed rhythms. What is otherwise only perceptible in silence emerges into apprehendable sound. The minimalist, repetitive lyrics paint pictures with spaces open for thought. They put into words what is intangible for the mind.
Musically influenced by many genres, the sound always focuses on accessibility that is free of all banality. Instant earworms and perfect pop songs mix with intense, challenging pieces that take a little longer to stick. But then, years later, they keep coming up again and again from the depths of your musical memory. KMET's lyrics are a great and diverse art form on its own. On one side, they reflect very personal perceptions of the most diverse phenomena of life. Small moments and inconspicuous observations are projected onto a monumental canvas with maximum zoom factor. But then there are larger-than-life stories and sheer overwhelming events, which are reduced to amazingly clever mantras made of just a few words.
Now we can happily announce the fourth album, after almost 20 years. With its noiseful tranquility and fragile poetry, “In Your Face” is another fabulous statement from this unconventional and remarkable artist.
Songs that creep along the slippery steps and branching corridors of a long labyrinth. Surveying damp underground alleys, slowly drying up the ground for a new found stability. The oxygen content of the air rises, there are patches of blue in the sky. Finally there is hope again.