filed under music – page 2

Kunzite – VISUALS

»Ride on the rays of the farthest sun«

About a decade ago I came across the electronic rock from Ratatat for the first time because of their features on one of my favourite albums, Kid Cudi’s masterpiece ‘Man on the Moon: The End of Day’. The recognizable sound the Brooklyn-based duo was contributing to the tracks ‘Alive’ and ‘Pursuit of Happiness‘ –probably one of my favourite songs of all time– lead me to listen to their music quite extensively back then, first and foremost to the extremly catchy tunes of their earlier released album ‘Classics’.

Just recently –six years after the last vital signs of Ratatat– said album (which nowadays is available on YouTube in its entirety) popped into my head again while listening to ‘VISUALS’, the just-released second longplayer by a band called Kunzite. Only after doing my habitual research on the music project unkown to me hitherto, I discovered my association is not by chance;

The 2018 formed duo is a collaboration between the musicians Agustin White and Mike Stroud, the latter being the guitarist of –you guessed it– Ratatat, for which he plays a variety of instruments. I guess a lot of the infectious groove on ‘VISUALS’ caused by synthesizers, pipe organs and lap steel guitars is to a great extent attributed to him, at least it undoubtedly sounds a hell lot like his other music project.

In fact the whole record sounds like Ratatat got inspired by the island vibes of Hawaii –where White and Stroud recorded large parts of the longplayer, decided to dial back the weirdness just a tiny bit and, most notably, add hypnotic pop vocals to their repertoire.

The result is a psychedelic joyride and probably one of my favourite albums of 2021 so far. I can’t wait for ‘VISUALS’ to drop on vinyl later this year (November), until then I have to be careful not to listen to it repeatedly ad nauseam in its digital form —especially since it oozes summer fun and therefore matches the current late summer sun way better than the dark winter months ahead.

There’s rumored to be an exclusive track with the grande Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry on the physical record, though, so I’m going to put it on as soon as I get my hands on it, no matter how often I’ll have played it already till then.

Music is a memory machine —one reason why I enjoy collecting records so much. Xavier Rudd for example was one of my favourite artists over a decade ago when I was still a student but already transitioning into a completely new phase of life. His old album ‘Solace‘ –I still own on CD– awakens a lot of happy memories of said carefree days whenever I put it on.

Currently my life is changing to a greater extent than ever before and even though I’m not trying to live barefoot, planning to move to Berlin and thinking about getting dreadlocks anymore –ironically I do have long hair for the very first time nowadays–, Rudd has been on heavy rotation again with his new song latterly. Now Stoney Creek for me will inevitable be linked to the life events of the challenging yet incredible fortunate last weeks.

Coz baby, the wind is blowing /
And there ain’t no other place I’d rather be /
And the wind owes me nothing /
But it’s blown me here with you /
[…]
This is home

xavierrudd.com