The Pop Corporation

Sometimes, musicians make music that sounds like it came from the future – and sometimes that music is pretty bad, forcing things together for the sake of innovation. However, sometimes – just sometimes – it feels so natural and effortless, that it is hard not to get overly excited.

And so to KÁRYYN who has a new album on Mute (a label you can trust) who manages to combine the familiar with enough of the avant garde that you can feel yourself being picked up and pulled along with its gravitational pull. It’s accessible music, sure, but this is big, adventurous music.

Co-produced with Hudson Mohawke and James Ford, ‘PHYSICS UNIVERSAL LOVE LANGUAGE (PULL)’ is filled with expansive, even brave moments, but never so off-the-wall that you don’t know which you’re facing. It’s probably reductive to compare this body of work to Björk, but at least in the ability to marry opposing forcing to make something incredibly engaging, it works here.

If Rosalia has shown us recently, music fans are more than okay when it comes to big artist statements being framed in what are ostensibly three-minute songs – and here, we have some bold themes wrapped up in some exquisite songwriting.

With ‘End To Knowing You’, we see some tender balladeering colliding headlong into some twisty, future-funk and the results are utterly fabulous – a real standout moment on an album filled with smart twists and turns. Album closer ‘FWD’ is a widescreen, electronic barnstormer picking up on the themes heard in the tremendous ‘ELSEWHEN’.

The heavy, melodious bass weaves in and out of glacial synthesisers and broken rhythms, and opener ‘COLLAPSE PHASE’ showcases the talents of KÁRYYN who seems to be laying herself quite bare before the listener, to make for an arresting listen.

What we’re dealing with a huge talent, and songs spill out and spiral outwards in various corners of the album, with the environment of the music crashing around her lone voice, sometimes tender and gentle, at other times, feeling like she’s in the middle of an emotional war.

As a result, the album – best listened to as a whole – is a hugely affecting listen. The tumult is often implied, but in numerous moments, erupt from beneath her emotive cries, sometimes unexpectedly.

This isn’t to say this is a tough experience for those being invited into KÁRYYN’s world – there are moments of joy amongst the heaviness, so when you are listening to someone and wondering if they are on the verge of breaking down at the microphone, it is powerful in different ways. ‘PULL’ is not shy of being dramatic, and some of art’s great moments have indulge in exactly that. It feels like there’s sections of this record where the artist is at the very edge, yet, still manages to sound like there is more in the tank.

It’s almost like there’s a throwing down of what’s considered polite or decent to let everything hang out, and it’s great to be in the presence of some music that says ‘fuck this’ and wrings its heart out as well as providing enough cerebral hits while its at it.

This is an ambitious album and KÁRYYN deserves the world for tackling something so large that’s been living inside her.