Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - EARS

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
EARS
2016
Spotify

When you get to the end of the year the content tends to get a bit sparse, and you find yourself digging deeper to find something new and something exciting. EARS is one of those little special surprises that unless you really looked probably would have gone unnoticed. The album is experimental and vast swirling in and out. You will be hard pressed to find something using more overtly electronic tones yet achieving such organic feelings. You very well be listening to the wind through the trees on "First Flight", if the wind was power and the trees electronic pieces all adding a uniqueness to the whole. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is taking you not on an epic journey, but more on a little walk experiencing all the beauty you may miss in your day to day life. It feels exactly like that perfect psychedelic trip where everything went right and you came out the other side more assured of your choices in life. However just when you think this is going to be a full electronic experience a song like "Envelop" comes on and is breathy yet very full and sort of bounds in the spaces between the music. Nothing on EARS is rushed in the slightest and is allowed to just spill out at whatever pace it sees fit. You would expect this to cause some lulls but they never come it is just more interesting music behind each and every corner.

The lyrical content is where EARS looses a bit of steam. It is mostly repetition of phrases rather than an actual song structure, using the voices as an instrument more than a conversation starter. But, what would you expect from an experimental record, three choruses and a couple verses? That would not make sense either. There is also a bit of a flow issue, where the songs stand up great on their own, but really seem like singular pieces rather than a part of the whole. Sure the idea of the album comes together, but the songs themselves have jagged edges that don't quite fit together. The vast majority of the record however is simply soothing, pulling you along gently and allowing you take in everything before you move on. Music like this is hard to explain to people because it is so visceral. You either feel this or you don't and trying to convince someone otherwise is nearly impossible. However if you take the time, and give it the space you will find that EARS truly is something great. Don't let this record pass you by like I almost did.

8.3 out of 10