I always find it strange that so many artists seem content to plow just one musical furrow, fix a point on the horizon, and head straight for it, passing through only one genre, one sound, one style. It seems as if they can only envisage themselves as being one easily defined thing. The smart artist understands that it’s much more fun to take the scenic route, to wander through all the many sonic pastures to reach their destination. sure, it takes longer but the journey is so much more rewarding.
Lily Vakili is one of the smart artists, and Oceans of Kansas is a very astute album, one that revels in such musical meanders. The music becomes something not easily labelled, adventurous, fresh, yet slightly familiar, and the album feels like you have been listening to it most of your life, surely the hallmark of a classic in the making. Even the title is more than it first appears, nodding to the ancient inland sea that once sat where Kansas now is while also serving as a metaphor for the shifting tides of our own lives.
And if the concept is clever, the songs are doubly so. Kicking off with “Okoboji,” we find ourselves immersed in a deft and spacious rock ‘n’ soul number, where guitars drive and drift , are gritty or graceful, as required, of melodic bass riffs, of cascading piano lines, and Vakili’s smooth, almost whispered vocals. You are hooked from the start.
“I’ve Been Hiding” is a confessional that slowly burns its way from staccato struts to apocalyptic-blues anthems, sitting in the musical landscape within easy reach of Nick Cave. “Photograph” is so fragile that it seems more like a feeling or a moment in time that can never be replicated, something personal, nostalgic, slightly melancholic, wistful. “Tannersville” finds her at the polar opposite, a squalling blast from which emerges a groove-driven slice of indie rock.
And sitting between such extremes is the sensational and seductive “Rocket,” walking a fine line between pop and rock, swerving the shallowness of the former and the cliche of the latter. In an album full of fantastic songs, this is the pinnacle, for me at least. Though ask me again tomorrow, and another sonic gem might have won me over. It’s best not to have favorites.
What a fantastic album. I have to admit that I am new to the Lily Vakili sonic party, but I’m going to be making up for lost time, that’s for sure.
Website
Facebook
Spotify
YouTube
Instagram
