Air And Kilometers
Half Asleep To NPR
It’s Memorial Day today. I had to work nevertheless. This morning my alarm clock went off at 5:30, just like normal, and I listened to NPR for an hour while I debated how early I needed to arrive at work.
To my surprise, the radio program - Morning Edition - transitioned with a track from the new Kaki King record that I am obsessed with “Air And Kilometers”. I have all four of her records now: I wish this didn’t sound like a criticism, but the records are not getting ‘better’. They’re all quite good, but if you insist that each new record be better than the last, you’re really missing the point. I’ve been a fan of many bands that I thought went stale after years of producing records and gaining in popularity. I don’t get the impression that Kaki is getting any more popular, so that’s not an issue for me.
I should report that the album format has not impressed me lately. And I say this as someone who buys whole CDs, not downloads single tracks. It’s an old argument, indeed: The album packed with filler to gird up one catchy single. I even remember my father expressing delight at an artist whose records didn’t attempt this maneuver. As if it were unheard of. I guess it was.
I remember very clearly that my high school friends were very excited about Fugazi records when they came out. Naturally, the success of other local bands provided some impetus for our own. But I was troubled. I only liked about half of the songs. No doubt I was a misfit, but I was even a misfit with this crowd. Fugazi is like a force of nature. Those guys just never stop. They provide the shibboleth for a counterculture: Fans revel in the negative, also. Hipsters like to keep something for themselves; Something that the squares don’t know about. And I was troubled because in so many things people demanded you be ‘in’ or ‘out’. I was riding the fence. And I assumed - I feared - that the in-crowd credibility of liking this signature act would blind every potential adherent to their faults. Fanaticism is just that: A feedback process whereby the doubts are silenced. That isn’t me.
The Kaki King records all have some rambling quality to them. With each record I notice it more. It can be as technically brilliant as classical music, but boring anyway. I can respect the pieces adamantly, but prefer to enjoy something else. Albums are not necessarily easy to craft, even given a list of good songs. You can disagree with the order all you want - now in a digital player, you can shuffle to your heart’s content. In a real sense, though, these rambles are what she does best. I can’t expect every tract to pop. Common sense would tell you that only a choice few will. And that’s “Air And Kilometers”. It snuck up on me: At first listen, it is maybe too happy. But the progression is an amazing little music machine. The same little rhythm guitar and a lap steel swooping in with a melody I mistook for a bowed instrument like viola. Each precisely fitted section is like a restatement of the theme. Each time through I realize the undercurrent of melancholy to the cheerful notes. The song works like a math proof, every step carefully introducing a new bit of insight. The lap steel gets a little more spacious with reverb, unless it’s just my imagination.
But back up a minute: in the order presented, the songs sometimes sound different. They inform each other. On one album, there is a song that is not to my mind particularly good, “My Insect Life” - but coming as it is, a slow rising chord progression, and the first time we hear her sing at all, right after a furiously technical slug-fest of ax grinding, it is like grace; like some sublime forgiveness. Or I’m wrong - isn’t she asking me sweetly for MY forgiveness after I held on to the ride that came before? I don’t think I would care much for the song on its own - it functions so well following the other. They would be movements in a symphony, were it not for record companies and 45 minute LPs. And, neither of these are the little ditties that charm me throughout her work, as does “Air And Kilometers”.
I get the impression - and maybe I’m just being snobbish - that the kids producing the music segments on Morning Edition do not experience the music the same way that I do: It’s nice music for an incidental gap-filler between stories. And it worked just fine. But the problem here is that I have attended to some of the songs they play with my full attention. And once in a while, one of those songs has crumpled my heart like a paper cup and then timidly handed it back to me like a gift. “Here you go. Enjoy”. I guess I take it too seriously - and it can be downright incongruous to hear such a song stuck in as ‘filler’. When I look down, dreamlike, at that crushed heart, I know something I didn’t know before; I comprehend, even thought I can’t explain. It actually IS a gift.
See… I really do take it too seriously.
Posted by Evan Bittner Mon, 26 May 2008 20:39:00 GMT
