Standing on the porch / looking out at the water / Waiting for the sun to treat you like a newborn daughter / We were so desperate for speed / we never counted the cost / Nights out on parade / you were the tempest / even lost. 

My friends, the dearest things you ever gave me in this life / Why is the pen so heavy / how could I not make you my wife? / Are we bolder / getting older or do we stay put instead? / I'm shivering in the sun / with cigarettes in my bed. 

You're the unsuspecting beauty with the speedway in sight / Eyes steady on the asphalt / praying for another night / And when I wake at midnight with my hands around my skull / The breath is short in coming / if it even comes at all. 

I call to God and ask him / for another reason / to leave this graveyard at my back as days turn into seasons / Here's to all the friendships / born despite the rain / and know you're walking hallowed ground when whispering her name. 

When you go / I will follow / I don't know if I can change. 

Smoking with my friends / whiskey on the floor / there's so much I regret / Take me higher than before / The days they run away / wild horses on the hills / I sit here thinking coastlines and what she really kills. 

Hands soft from easy living / My head as hard as stone / Is this a dream of dying / or is this just living alone? 

I called three of my friends to push the tombstone away / Here I am / still living / it's just another day. 

When you go / I will follow / I don't know if I can change / for you.

Thom Kolb, Cail Judy

Buzzing

From the album The Kid out October 6, 2017 on Western Vinyl

Pre-Order The Kid
BLEEP https://bleep.com/release/86790-kaitlyn-aurelia-smith-the-kid
Norman Records https://www.normanrecords.com/records/166212
Bandcamp https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/the-kid
iTunes hyperurl.co/8n4qa5
WV http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv170

In 2017, the musical term “electronic” is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music.  Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working under this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment.  Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this notion couldn’t be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world.  Smith (who by no coincidence, cites naturalist David Attenborough as a contemporary muse) has embodied such an appreciation on The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.  The album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough EARS, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across four sides of a double LP.

The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana.  Smith’s music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the aforementioned subject. Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track “An Intention,” which serves not only as a soaring spire on The Kid, but on her entire output.  There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith’s watermark.  The emotional focus of side two is the vital but underreported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness.  The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith’s ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer.  This side offers up another highlight in the form of “In The World But Not Of The World” which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse.

Side three emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one’s own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one’s upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists aim to fulfill.  This side ends with the exploratory album cut “Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am” recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. This humble piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side four’s verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself.  This final side represents a return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life.  On “To Feel Your Best” this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain “one day I’ll wake up and you won’t be there” which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss. The song has both effects depending on the mood of the listener, and both interpretations are equally moving.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners, and here she represents her kind proudly.  The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that. There is a similar gravity to both birth and death, and rarely is that correlation as accurately and enthusiastically mapped as it is here.  As Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith explores her existence through music, she guides us in gleefully contemplating our own.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - "To Follow and Lead"

SW9 9SL

Available for download now! 

https://empire.lnk.to/IllNana

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ILL NANA (feat. Trippie Redd)

Measurements-James Blake (Kinship remix)

Laptop music from Vancouver. Influenced by music my friends make and like. 

I'm new at this, thanks for listening. 

Bookings/Inquiries/Love: knshp.music@gmail.com


Measurements-James Blake (Kinship remix)

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