There is, they say, nothing new under the sun, no new musical cards to play, nothing that hasn’t already been thought of and tried out. Well, almost. But most people heading out into the musical unknown seem to produce wholly unpalatable music, usually the result of fusing and forging musical genres and styles that have no business being in the same neighborhood. Yes, rap-rock, I’m looking at you.
All the deft and discerning music maker can do is look to the past, pick up whatever sonic shiny things their magpie-like eye alights on, and forge something new out of the old, something fresh but familiar. It’s undoubtedly what the fantastically named Kid Bowery does here on his latest single, “Devolver.”
If there is nothing new to be found in the building blocks, it is then the choice of those choice sonic elements – ragged folk, psychedelic soundscapes, singer-songwriter narratives, hippy-pop vocals, and indie sonics – that come together to create his signature sound. Perhaps there is too much of the same mercurial sonic sheen employed by The Dandy Warhols on “Bohemian Like You” or something a bit too Crosby, Stills & Nash in its nostalgic sound. Still, that’s the point, for me anyway, and who would have thought that those two reference points would be found cheek-by-jowl in a review of modern music?
This might not be the sound of a musical revolution, but it certainly is the sound of musical evolution, and that always delivers more satisfying results.
So, if there is nothing new left, no more worlds to conquer, this is a perfect example of taking the familiar and making anagrams out of it, and doing so deftly enough that no one will ever be able to reverse engineer the song to find its starting point.
And that, dear reader, absolutly is the point.
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