{"id":401312,"date":"2015-11-12T12:20:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frederickplaylist.com\/?p=401312"},"modified":"2015-11-12T12:20:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:20:52","slug":"kai-orion-pots-pans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2015\/11\/12\/kai-orion-pots-pans\/","title":{"rendered":"Kai Orion: ‘Pots & Pans’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kai\"<\/a>Well, Kiss That Frog, climb atop Solsbury Hill, and grab your nearest Sledgehammer: We\u2019ve found a doppelg\u00e4nger for Peter Gabriel. And lucky for us, it\u2019s a local kid by the name of Kai Orion. Also a member of College Park quintet Bare Left (who we\u2019ve reviewed before under the name Bluebeard), Orion has gone full-on Gabriel with his latest EP, \u201cPots & Pans,\u201d and boy, if you\u2019re even a remote fan of the former Genesis frontman, these seven songs will open you up to a fairly impressive secret world of its own.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because, as Orion notes, this is an album that was \u201ccreated using only everyday found objects, found sounds, field recordings and household items as instruments, with the exception of voice. Each song focuses on a different setting or location common in modern life.\u201d Sound pretentious? You bet. But it takes a special kind of musical mind to pull it all off with proper amounts of both intrigue and accessibility. Kai Orion is just the guy to do it.<\/p>\n

Take \u201cQuiet Love\u201d as an example. It\u2019s the set\u2019s second track, but the first on which you can really hear the Gabriel influence in his voice. The song moves methodically through atmospherics that recall some of the spacier material his most prominent inspiration has produced. Echoes and ambiance provide an apt stage for Orion\u2019s voice \u2014 so much so that barely (just barely) you can hear a wince of Coldplay\u2019s Chris Martin creep through at the end of a few choice lines.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just barely. Because the rest of the set? It\u2019s all Gabriel, all the time. \u201cNo Conversation\u201d is where that formula comes together the most. If it\u2019s not through the signature vocal cracks heard at the conclusion of a few verses, then it\u2019s the ambition with which this guy crafts his art. What does that mean? Well, check out the list of instruments used, in addition to his voice, throughout the five minutes and 16 seconds at hand:<\/p>\n

Drawers. A typewriter. A knock on wood. A busy signal. A dial tone. A no-service signal. Phones ringing. A printer printing. A stapler. Pots and pans being struck. Wine glasses. And, of course, wine glasses being blown. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the list.<\/p>\n

The thing is, you\u2019d never even know that actual instruments weren\u2019t being played. In fact, for a brief set of seconds, the backbeat even evokes the early tones of perhaps Gabriel\u2019s most politically charged song, \u201cBiko.\u201d Then, as if that\u2019s not enough to get you to reminisce about a song like \u201cMoribund the Burgermeister,\u201d the singer throws in a chorus that draws upon all those great chant-like cadences the more famous artist in this equation has used brilliantly throughout his career. It\u2019s eerie how similar the two are.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the smarts keep coming and the grooves get weirder. \u201cMachines\u201d showcases a bit of Tom Waits ethos with its clunkiness, the banging of the machinery providing a texture that could \u2026 well \u2026 only work if it was the actual sound of actual banging on actual machinery (which it is). \u201cBeautiful Darkness\u201d takes the noise of a dribbled basketball and somehow manages to make it appear at least slightly funky. And \u201cA Silent Car Ride\u201d is both charming and witty, the various vehicular intonations proving to be a fantastical way to anchor a song.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Dream Of You\u201d then wraps things up slowly, Orion\u2019s voice taking its time with a touch of melancholy and a spate of layers. As the song begins to fade, and the effects are turned up on his vocals, it becomes the perfect way to end a confounding and calculated collection of songs that deserves as much credit for its imagination as it does its resolve. You don\u2019t need to look much further than the \u201csnow melting off trees\u201d instrument to truly grasp as much.<\/p>\n

And if it\u2019s not \u201csnow melting off trees\u201d, then maybe it\u2019s \u201cwhistling wind.\u201d Or \u201ctea kettles boiling.\u201d Or \u201ccar keys jingling.\u201d Or \u2026 you get it. Kai Orion\u2019s \u201cPots & Pans\u201d is, without question, the most ambitious record of 2015, and, considering how much influence he seemingly takes from one of the most forward-thinking pop artists of the last 30 years, it\u2019s probably safe to proclaim this EP a grand victory on all ends.<\/p>\n

The nuances are many. The ingenuity is unparalleled. The execution is mind-blowing. The end result is genius. A secret world, indeed.<\/p>\n

**** 4 STARS OUT OF 4 ****<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, Kiss That Frog, climb atop Solsbury Hill, and grab your nearest Sledgehammer: We\u2019ve found a doppelg\u00e4nger for Peter Gabriel. And lucky for us, it\u2019s a local kid by the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}