Spectreview: Kamilita – KAMILITA

-LIGHT GREEN-

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Prolificness in today’s world of DIY music is just as intimidating as it is remarkable. A nonstop creative process conjures a certain level of respect but also a strange wariness of qualitative dilution, a bucket of water tossed into an ocean. Seattle’s Kamilita seems to pump out songs like a factory, almost 100 songs in the last two years, and while her tastes and interests vary wildly across her discography (sometimes within albums) her wide-ranging influences -80’s synth pop, weirdo new wave, burlesque- ring true across everything she does. Her arguably best work, the brilliantly accessible ARRANGEMENTS, reframed old jazz and soul standards through her unique lens to breathtaking effect, but if you’re discovering her music for the first time, there seems to be no better starting point than her self-titled album, a heady collection of experimental pop songs on electronic instruments that vaguely touches on the fading trendiness of vaporware while broadly representing the breadth of her discography. KAMILITA‘s a long album, almost 70 minutes of coursing vintage synths and liquid textures that seem to smudge into each other over time, but her focus never shifts even as the album’s sounds twist and morph from Commodore 64 arpeggiation (the excellent “cosmic urgency”) to umbral guitar triplets (“KAMILITA”) to robotic harmonies (“fake af”). There’s a certain magic in how shapeless her songs can be, in following where those songs go and discovering where they end up. Take “children,” a track that seems to form a Graecian urn as it blossoms slowly skyward through its tiny touches, the cascading piano and sudden octave shifting bass beat giving way to a dance break and sweetly-lated harmonies, which then hit a strut as the song folds into itself. Equally mesmerizing is “hard candy,” another dance number that’s equal parts sensual and unsettling, also shifting constantly as it lays a Lana Del Ray vocal delivery through Casio dance beats and a brief processed orchestra sample. Moments like these are proof that prolificness doesn’t necessarily indicate a tossed-off quality, and despite its length and occasional level landscape, KAMILITA’s embarrassment of riches shouldn’t be missed by those into cerebral, challenging electronic pop.

Recommended for staring at optical illusions.