(12.29.07) tKatKa are a pop-electronica outfit from East London, a Brit-Swede
collusion between PJ Norman and Carlsson. The phrases “well crafted” and
“drum programming” immediately hitch themselves to “atmospheric synths” as
non-committal stop-gaps, for want of anything more engaged (truth be told,
as slot-fillers while the disc gets its third run-out here, having failed
to register notably on this listener’s radar on two previous try-outs).
Going deeper, does this tKatKa project have any further resonance, beyond
its peculiar plosive moniker? Let’s do the track-walk:
Opener “Lazerslab” hits with a combo of brash keyboard and brooding motifs
which allies itself to a Bigbeat-flavoured dumbdown of early-period AE-AFX
hyper- drum-thrum. Picking up a bad-boy synth-bass figure along the way,
they revisit 90s ambient techno on a somewhat paint-by-numbers exercise for
a new more blank generation. This gives way to a more rock-geared
“E.L.D.A.C.”, stomping around anonymously for a bit before losing interest
and ceding to “Storm Proof Weather,” and more of the same, complete with
waves and seagulls. At this point it becomes clear to the listener what
manner of listening experience this is: not nearly interesting enough
thematically (or texturally diverting) to justify its chosen ambit of
intelligent dance instrumentalism, tKatKa probably lost their opportunity
to hit paydirt as a post-Roykssop bandwagon-jump exercise, in the interests
of indulging their artier side (Graphic Designers division?). The most
immediately successful track is “(It’s Just a) Molecule,” which at least
manages to gild a couple of interweaving keyboard and guitar figures with
enough resonant glaze and chiming blur to distract from a certain ho-hum in
the rhythm department. “Let It Float” puts up some familiar Boards (Canada,
dry) and gets a bit more downtempo and uh… mellow. And what of “Bedroom
Dust”? A vocoder-infected doodle riddled with some annoying voice samples
riding on a undercarriage that feels like a preset labeled “Techno plod.”
Ask not of “Sundae Haze,” for it is but a flimsy sliver of weedy sub-Air
would-be ambient pop balladry. But what’s this? Can it be a final track
managing to end in comparative glory by seeking to do less – allowing some
urban field recording material to drift over a lonely 4/4 kickdrum and a
simplest of haunting organ-like two-chord shifts? Yes, “Globyl” leaves us
with 8:32 minutes of something effortlessly affecting and atmospheric –
evoking a kind of Lost in Translation wooziness – after 35:04 of programmed
huff-and-puff to little effect.
So, tKatKa’s Star Quality being fairly negligible, might one settle for a
base camp of some form of Brand Identity? “They have been described as
occupying that no-man’s-land between Aphex Twin and Royksopp…” chirrups
the press blurb, helpfully, wishful-thinkingly. But either your reviewer’s
ears are differently configured, or this duo’s musical works (one
honourable exception apart) fall a way short of either the “…playful and
weird…” or “…ominous yet soothing…” character attributes their
publicity spuriously seeks to accrue to them through the hopeful waving of
referents to more accomplished predecessors.
tKatKa is out now on 100m.
