Jonah Bromwich has the mind of a kilo shopper.
I don’t have a verdict on Kilo Kish yet. Sometimes, on songs like “Crosstown,” where she sounds drugged out and swoony, I want to say she’s an artist to watch. Other times, as on her amateurish feature on the latest Childish Gambino mixtape or when she laughs off the importance making music like the contemptuous proto-hipster, I want to forget about her entirely. (I’m sure it’s true that she never meant to take music seriously. That being said, once you start getting some shine, it’s a real slap in the face to less successful artists when you posture as if it’s all sooo meaningless.)
Her newest song, “Creepwave,” has, for the time, renewed my interest. It’s a candidate for the most accurately titled song of 2012, as an unsettling, supposedly unfinished beat by Cronos bubbles under the service of Kish’s wispy voice. It’s this voice that’s the key to Kilo’s appeal and it functions best in this kind of setting: her stubborn vulnerability and tumblr poetry lends a Lynchian sense of soon-to-be-corrupted purity to the track. “All white and empty-ish now,” she chants, as hollow chords echo in an empty hallway. It’s a careless, vernacular line, and it works perfectly. Apparently, some people can’t help but to do these things well, even when they’re doing them accidentally.
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