The perfect release for those recent grads without a definitive final destination, experimental rapper-singer Kilo Kish’s Across EP dropped digitally via music/fashion label Kitsuné yesterday.
Produced by LA-based multi-instrumentalist Caleb Stone, it’s her follow-up effort to last year’s hyped-up K+ tape, which earned her a fair amount of critical praise and featured collaborations with musicians ranging from Earl Sweatshirt to SBTRKT.
And while it was a much lauded effort, Across sees Kish finally shedding K+’s jaded, love-lorn quips in favor of more rambling, self-reflective musings. And as a result, there’s an honest sense of impatient restlessness pervading the entire EP, born from a conceptual project to record her journey on a great American roadtrip last year. In similar Kerouacian fashion, it oscillates between impending adulthood and Peter Pan-esque reflections on youth, anchored in themes of growth and progress in the face of a fuzzy future.
Listless and decidedly uncertain, it’s not just the content that informs this, as Kish’s entire aesthetic is reminiscent of a cheeky schoolgirl rhyme. With something distinctly girlish and shy about her sing-song flow, her viscous voice oozes and glides across everything from the chug-along lug of “Begin Route” to the skittering backbeat of “Wrong”. Versatile and meandering, it’ll make a perfect soundtrack for that long, lonely trek across the plains and Route 66.
Purchase Kilo Kish’s Across EP is out now on Kitsuné and available on iTunes.
