GIG REVIEW: Kaki King
- Posted on October 6, 2008 11:57 AM
- 0 comments
Kaki King
ICA
3rd October
Review by Andrew Williams
Thanks to its mixed media artistic credentials - with art photos lining the walls and all sorts of corridors leading to other no doubt brow-raising exhibits poking out of every corner - the ICA and the audience for the Kaki King's final show of the European leg of her tour were well matched. Replete with angular hair-dos and finely-coiffured fringes, this was a bunch wearing their self-consciously current musical leanings on their proverbial sleeves.
Supported by the fledgeling songstress Jess Bryant, who hasn't quite managed to shake-off the sensibilities of a superior open mic night singer, Kaki herself appeared onstage without ceremony, quickly laying into her guitar.
Atlhough ostensibly a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar forever slung over her shoulders, King's material falls into a handful of different categories. The first, for which she is probably most well known, is the acoustic guitar instrumental. Simultaneously tapping the frets and the body of the guitar itself while engaging in some reasonably advanced finger picking, King has been labeled by many as one of the key guitar idols of recent years. Perhaps more impressive than this is the way she manages to fit virtuoso guitar antics into a songwriterly form that never eclipses the song itself. Although a survey of the press she receives tells a different story, she comes across as a songwriter first, with the guitar technician aspect of her music trailing some way behind.
These instrumental pieces come across very well live, their soothing and occasionally entrancing sound only amplified by the charismatic figure of King herself- a steely little fragile thunderbolt, if that's not too many contradictions to comprehend.
King played with the sole accompaniment of Dan Brantigan, the equally fantastic woodwind synth and trumpet-wielder. Amazingly, at one point he manages to elicit convincing whale song from the latter, while the former, an analog EVI, allowed for a great descent into borderline electro as King switched between her guitar and a percussion boc, using live looping techniques to construct a soundscape on the fly.
The only moments that came across as less than assured were those where the material would quite clearly benefit from a full band, or at the very least some live drums. She apologetically referenced this herself during some of her typically self-effacing stage banter, so we can't blame her entirely. For the most part though, Kaki King is just at home alone on the stage. Some of her more conventional vocal-led songs could do with some more memorable melodies, but we're sure she'll have time to work on that while the PR citing her as the foremost young female guitarist continues to roll in.
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