Matthew E. White
K Bay
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Domino
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Album Review: K Bay by Matthew E. White
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 7.5/10
Matthew E. White luxuriates in the sounds and styles of American popular music from the 1960s and '70s while lightly dodging over the pitfalls of pastiche: lifeless citations or scolding subtext. His leaping insight saves his music from the former, his embrace of modernity from the latter. (His exploratory jazz background helps, too.) His music invites scrutiny, but his treatment of his touchstones, which span Stax soul and Brill Building pop, is too motley for footnotes to contain.
Based on rating 3
Few artists are so deeply steeped in the musical history of America as Virginia's Matthew E White. The 39-year-old singer-songwriter, arranger and producer established his reputation more widely with two well-received solo albums – 2012's Big Inner and 2015's Fresh Blood. By then, White was already an established name on the South's alternative scene, founding the avant-jazz ensemble Fight The Big Bull and his own label Spacebomb during the 2000s.
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