Kes
Ex-Bird Blobs Kes falls down a well and
returns with the kind of haunted music you imagine spooky British kids
in the 60s listening to in the dark, with their honest long hair and dark
muted colours. This is bare-toned autistic folk, close-miked, skittering
acoustic proximity music, with elfin vocals that alternate between tender
strains and rude admissions of fallibility. Overseen by a thick, heavy
sense of black silence, The Jelly Is In The Pot is a percussionless
performance piece, any more stripped back and you’d be sucking marrow
from its bones. Kes demonstrates scant regard for the
fashions of meter and pop sensibility – yet ultimately this record
is nothing but melody, nothing but friendly tones sitting together against
a foreboding backdrop of sublime stillness. This is an intricate celebration
of delicately flawed delivery, with instrumentation so restrained that
what embellishments there are seem symphonic in their exotic naiviety,
arranged with a singular spatial reverence for the timbral breadth of
instrument and note. Devoid of the trappings of traditional generic structure
or indie scenester guilt, Kes comes across like a crazy secret your best
friend forgot to tell you – the kind of music you imagine yourself
writing when you are asleep, the details of which you can never quite
remember on waking. Who knows what confined space this material is coming
from? All we know is it’s dark outside and there’s a storm
passing overhead.
Subsequent to his Unstable Ape release Kes has released two suberb albums with Melbourne indie label Misteltone Records. Check out his artist page for more info.