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Kaki King plays the Roxy Tonight
Artist: Kaki King
Album: Dreaming of Revenge
Label: Velour Music Group
Release Date: 03/11/2008
Listen to "Pull Me Out Alive":
The Kaki King show at the Roxy will be great - we will be treated to a live performance by a guitar virtuoso whose combination of hammerons, finger-picking, and fret-slapping, results in very haunting and beautiful melodies (Joe Satriani, go eat your heart out). King's instrumentals have garnered the attention of film makers like Sean Penn who commissioned her to write pieces for his recent film, Into the Wild, and she will doubtless have more such opportunities in the near future based on some of her efforts in her March 11th release, Dreaming of Revenge.
This album has a number of stunning instrumental pieces like "Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be A Bad Person", "Bone Chaos In the Castle", and "Montreal", and these alone are worth getting this album. What King attempts to feature on the record, however, is more of her vocals and lyrics, which, I think, need more work. What some describe as a "whispery" and "ethereal voice" came through as thin and reedy to me. King has described some of the songs as break-up songs which is exactly what they are: petulant and immature missives that are all about "dreaming of revenge" against whomever dumped her. What saves these songs is her incredibly mature and sophisticated music which is enough for me to almost forgive the lyrics. There are only a few of these songs on the album so by no means is the release "ruined", something I think that would be impossible. I'm really looking forward to King's further development as a complete singer-songwriter, something she will doubtless be ready for with her next album.
From a few YouTube clips I've seen, she will be putting on an excellent live show - be sure to check her out tonight at the Roxy.
