One of the things about having friends that run record labels is that sometimes, you’ll get curated bonuses thrown in with your orders. This is especially true of my friend Rob who runs Friend Club Records, who always includes trading cards of hockey players and handwritten notes with the cassettes I buy from him.
But sometimes, he’ll toss a record my way, which is how I was introduced to Kellen and their brilliant genre-bending EP Lowercase God.
In these days of TikToks and Instagram, musicians have a difficult task ahead of them. It used to be that you could record a great song, put it on your MySpace or PureVolume, and try to push it out to the right people. Now, they are beholden to the algorithms that populate endless feeds based on the engagement rates of minute-long videos. A minute already isn’t much time to make a meaningful musical statement, but considering how most people will scroll past if it doesn’t grab their attention within a few seconds, the stakes are even higher.
A few elements have proven to work very well in this attention-deficit, hyper-saturated format: the virtuosic chops of math rock, the ear-bending textures of shoegaze, and the tranquil vibes of dream pop. Scroll through the trending music hashtags and you’ll see plenty of two-handed tapping, reverb pedals, and relaxed atmospheres punctuating the typical wankery.
Usually, those are all from different artists. Or at least different songs. But this Austin trio manages to combine all of that into one tight package.
“Fishbowl” opens the record like a thesis statement. Claire Puckett coaxes her guitars out of a thick fog of reverb, her voice floating gently above the rapid-fire rhythm section of Dwight Smith’s acrobatic bassline and Nay Wilkins’ hyperactive drumming. At first blush, it feels almost chaotic, but that perceived bedlam betrays an intricate sense of order. Despite the seemingly disparate elements, the songs never run out of control. More than that, they never feel incongruent. Despite its range, the five tracks feel cohesive. Even the tappy urgency of “Bloomer” fits nicely juxtaposed to the subdued, Braids-like “Nowhere.”
Perhaps the most successful piece of alchemy though is closer “That Day,” which is centered around a slow tapped guitar part and augmented by swirling synths. Despite the tranquil tempo, there’s still plenty of carnivalic feats performed by the rhythm section, punctuating the subdued verses with blasts of drum fills and distortion.
My only issue with this record is that it’s only 21 minutes long. It feels like a full length while you’re listening to it, but once the needle slides into the locked groove at the end of the disc, it feels almost like a tease. This is a band that clearly has a lot to say, and as much as this EP manages to fit into its five songs, it feels like they’re just getting started. I’ll definitely be keeping my ear to the ground for more.