King Krule
It's nothing new for there to be an air of excitement around a new artist. Given the digital musical age we live in now a plethora of artists in their embryotic phases are uploading their music to soundclouds and bandcamps all over the world waiting for a battle scarred blogger to stumble upon them at 2am, thinking he's finally struck gold, and put together a rambling 'the best thing I've heard all year' post. It's just the way a part of this business works. Except it hasn't been this way for King Krule. His slow yet steady rise to acclaim has matured his musical output, taking initial rough workings that showed moments of brilliance to his latest batch of songs that show brilliance with moments of rough and we're sure the rough is very much intended.
South East Londoner Archy Marshall began life as Zoo Kid back in May of 2008 at the painfully young age of 14. Taking his cues from dub, garage and old school hip hop he was made privvy to via the house parties of his creative parents, Marshall slowly began putting together songs for his aptly named debut 'The $quality EP'. The 9 tracker saw a release in early 2009 and immediately showed Marshall to be wise beyond his years. Even his voice, deep, broken and indebted to the likes of Ian Dury and Joe Strummer seemed to be reflecting on the difficulties of a life lived for doublethe length of his yet an earnesty carried through that made it feel all the more real. Those witness to these initial recording, some of which are near impossible to find, had already began to see Marshall as the potential voice of his generation. His honesty and anger was still fresh as was the impressive wordplay and song structures seen of tracks like 'Broke' and his remix of Radioheads 'Jigsaw Fall Apart'.
Soon after, the young singer songwriter started putting tracks up online one-by-one, collectively titling them the 'U.F.O W.A.V.E' songs. It was with these tracks that the blogosphere started to pick up on the now 16 year old talent, his talent for production refining upon each recording whilst his influences bounced between the old school hip hop and garage and newer inspirations such as the poems of W.H Auden, and the music of Gene Vincent. The songs felt as much about the state of the world as they did about the human condition. 'Ocean Bed' is a tale of heartbreak whilst 'Has This Hit' felt like a damning summarisation of the difficulties of contemporary youth, the reality of the problems facing the young, and the anger that came with these frustrations. The stand out track was 'Out Getting Ribs' the song moulding both the political and emotional nature of the collection and leading to the first utterings of Mashall potentially being the voice of his generation.
Marshall soon released 'Out Getting Ribs' as a single on tastemaker label House Anxiety (Graffiti Island, The Big Pink, 2:54) and the critical acclaim soon began to flood in with Pitchfork awarding it 'Best New Track' and Zoo Kid being named one of Guardian News Bands Of The Day. It was clear also that other connections were being made, fan videos began to be posted on to youtube, a single release party in London saw a cue around the block and those whispers of Marshall becoming the voice of his generation suddenly began to grow louder. Of course, with the beginnings of success comes the creation of your detractors but when the best they could muster were scoffs at hair colour and the fact the troubadour was getting his education over at the Brit school it seeemed even they couldn't really argue against the emerging talent.
Impressive shows in Paris further consolidated the positive opinion on Zoo Kid, with videos showing the positive audience reaction leaving the singer songwriter with a shy but affirming smile between songs before plunging back into the music that had brought both him and the crowd there in the first place.
It was shortly thereafter that it seemed a name change was necessary, the reasons for which are still unknown and whilst it was shortly presumed he may just revert to his alter ego's alter ego DJ JD Sports, Marshall decided to christen himself with a new moniker, the quite impressive King Krule. Whilst the name bemused many at first it was a show at France's MIDI festival that welcomed in the dawn of a new era for Marshall, the songs sounding sharper than ever, new tracks even more refined, powerful and profound.
Whether or not Marshall will voice his generation is one that's still undecided but with a new EP out now showcasing his brilliant turn of phrase, song structures and THAT voice speaking and singing love alongside hate, power alongside weakness, anger alongside complaceny and youth alongside the world in which it faces, the jury shouldn't be out for too long.
King Krule released his self-titled EP last week on True Panther.
He plays the following dates.
November
14 Brighton Prince Albert
15 London Corsica Studios