KIMMORTAL GROOVES Children of Bodom:
MC brings strong beats and layered lyrics
Kimmortal
X Marks the Swirl kimmortal.bandcamp.com Over the past five years or so, Vancouver MC Kimmortal has become something of a fixture on the local scene. Working with local members of the hip-hop, queer and Filipinix community, the music made by Kimmortal is flowing, lush, fierce and forwardgrooving.
“Kimmortal is an artist of lines and rhymes” declares the Bandcamp bio, and the artist born Kim Villagante is paving a path with a penchant for well-crafted pop and big beats. You’ll want to check out this release.
Here are five things to know about X Marks the Swirl:
1.
Community building
Local “femcees” Missy D, JB the First Lady, Khingz, as well as groundbreaking First Nations rapper Ostwelve, all drop onto tracks on the album. There probably hasn’t been a local hip-hop album to showcase this many scene voices out in many years and, adding in working with the dance-fashion-art collective Immigrant Lessons, the record is a celebration of community.
2.
Ice Palaces
Building from a crystallineguitar-loop beginning into a stripped-down ballad, this is one of many surprises on X marks the Swirl. It’s a pop number that could easily wind up on a playlist with other chart-topping R&B singers with its memorable hook chorus.
3.
Reverberating production While a lot of contemporary music is favouring tight, sketchy electronic buzzes and ticks, most of the 11 tunes on this album are more reverberant and open.
With phones on, songs such as Escape and Portal are big-space songs. It’s easy on the ears and enables more focus on the lyrics, which, most certainly, is the primary focus of the material.
4.
Lyrical depth
A lot has gone into the content of the material, as one would expect. Songs such as Sad Femme Club confront harassment, sexism and racism front and centre: Dear Goddess give me patience/ Tired of trying to explain/I’ve got zero tolerance when they f--k with my sacred space.
Another track, Questions, is about the personal side of the political realm: Can you give me all the reasons why/Should we stay or should we fight?/Am I wrong or am I right/Should we stay or should we fly?
With a smooth flow and some pure singing, the material has clearly been developed with “best practices” of communicating in mind.
5.
Kimmortal live
The album release for X Marks the Swirl is March 14, 8 p.m. at the Fox Cabaret.
Tickets and info are available for $12 at brownpapertickets. com, or $15 at the door. ALSO SPINNING THIS WEEK: Astralingua: Safe Passage (Midnight Lamp Records)
Denver-based vocalist Anna Rose Thompson and composer/ singer Joseph Thompson make shadowy chamber folk with enough of a spooky glean to it that you could easily imagine this as background music to a Game of Thrones episode. In that sense, the string orchestrations are cinematic, the voices whispery, and lyrically, it gets quite psychedelic at times.
That something this acidtinged, pastoral and gothically tilted came out of Colorado’s urban centre instead of some shire in the U.K. is pretty surprising. For prog folk fans and more.
Hexed (Nuclear Blast Records)
Finnish legends Children of Bodom have always had a knack for delivering pounding force with an exceptional melodic sensibility. It’s made the band a fan favourite over a dozen discs, but not without gaining detractors along the way.
Like Opeth, the band has taken some turns that didn’t bring everyone along for the ride. On Hexed, the group drops what is probably its most consistent set of songs since the beloved Are You Dead Yet album, with standouts such as the screeching power-tinged Under Grass and Clover, the booming Kick in a Spleen and the progressively driven title track.
The guitar work is back in line since Daniel Freyerg joined the group to replace the departed guitarist Roope Latvala and — as ever — Janne Wirman proves that keyboards are as heavy metal an instrument as there ever was. Check his playing in the opening track, This Road, for example.
The band plays March 28, 6:45 p.m., at the Vogue Theatre. Tickets and info are available at secureboxoffice.com
Download: Unknown Room (Artoffact)
A rather sad release, as it marks the last time Skinny Puppy’s Cevin Key and Phil Western worked together. Western died on Feb. 9 at age 47.
Since 1995, the two have recorded rhythmic, pulsating homages to electronic music of an earlier era, as well as the duo’s industrial-techno roots.
Right from the mechanical drive of the opening track, Calling Monster Island, it’s clear that the mood will be ominous on the disc, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t explosions of dance-happy beats such as the aptly titled Happy Tribe Conspiracy or the mutant, mechanistic funk of Takadanobaba.
It may be unlucky album No. 13, but it’s a fine contribution to one of the most interesting and consistent electro crews to come out of Vancouver’s fertile ’90s scene.
Do yourself a favour and check out Western’s grossly underappreciated 1998 album The Escapist, too.