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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Quiet Riot, Kasio Keeps it Down
Thursday 16 May @ 00:13:55 |
 Even against the normal Thursday night din of the Dinkytowner, the buzz issuing from the PA can easily overwhelm a solo performer. But for Kasio, quite possibly the most quiet and self-effacing musician to perform in that setting, it offers the ideal accompaniment. Playing the role of the pedal tone in Baroque counterpoint, the speakers’ hum provides the perfect underpinning for Kasio’s minimalist, unabashedly personal songs.
In many genres of music, white noise is frowned upon, but in the context of Kasio’s indie aesthetic, it finds a comfortable home. Kasio (aka Kasi Engler) typically divides her set equally between guitar-based compositions and songs that showcase her vast collection of the Casio keyboards that explain her daftly chosen moniker.
According to Kasio, most of these keys were purchased on eBay or in thrift stores for less than $40. The tech-savvy artist feeds the instruments through a toy amp no larger than a lunchbox, a setup that gives her music an undeniably lo-fi (read: raw, unpretentious, fragile) feel. It’s almost as if she’s playing in her room for her cats, and she doesn’t want to scare them away with anything too loud.
Although a multi-instrumentalist, Kasio is certainly no Eric Dolphy. Her songs are dry and sparse, reminiscent of Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) or even Liz Phair’s more laconic moments. Her almost-whispered, deadpan vocals weave tales of alienation, the drudgery of the daily grind and even the late-nite booty call.
In “Change of Address” she croons about the loneliness that follows the demise of a relationship: “If you see him / Say hello / And that I am fine ... Even though that is a lie / Somebody else answer the door / I can’t hear it / I don’t live here anymore.”
It’s almost as if she’s playing in her room for her cats, and she doesn’t want to scare them away with anything too loud.
Kasio’s lyrics are clever and resonant, though certainly not obvious, and she expertly maintains that fine line between obscurity and blatancy. She gives listeners just enough so they can see the outline of the picture to fill in the color on their own.
But Kasio longs for an even more abstract way to channel her art. Tired of singing songs about breakups, she wants to focus her attention on music where her self-confessed whininess doesn’t play such a prominent role.
“Eventually, I will get away from the singer/songwriter thing for a while,” she says. “I’m not as interested in it anymore. I’m working on electronic music a lot more than anything else.”
Still, as long as Kasio whines out thoughtful lyrics set to beautiful and original melodies never encumbered by overzealous accompaniment, you won’t want to miss her. pulse
Kasio plays Fri., March 1, at the 7th Street Entry. 6 p.m. $6. 21+. Andrew Broder of Fog, Darren Jackson of Kid Dakota and Martin Dosh open. 701 1st Ave. N., Mpls. 612-338-8388.
Behind the scenes
Despite work in several different bands, Owen’s Mike Kinsella is a reluctant rock star
by Celeste Tabora
Mike Kinsella considers himself a “lifer” when it comes to the never ending cycle of writing and performing music. This year, he released a solo album on Polyvinyl Records, abandoning his drumming duties with Owls just after their last tour.
Absent more often than not from his hometown of Chicago, Mike has been doing this routine since age 14 with Cap’N Jazz. He continued the tradition with projects like American Football and Joan of Arc, in addition to his recent stint with Owls.
“I got to a point where I needed to pay a lot of money to some guy to teach me how to play [drums] better, or to just quit,” he says. “I was in a rut for a while; it was really frustrating. I’d rather pick up a guitar [any] day. I’m doing what I hear in my head as opposed to just playing drums for somebody else’s stuff.”
Though he’s performed using his own first and last names, he chose Owen as a moniker for this project.
“I wanted to call it anything but my name,” he says. “I think [using my name [cj] would generate] a bad ‘singer/songwriter’ connotation. [With Owen], people won’t assume that it’s some guy playing acoustic guitar.”
No matter what name he gives himself, Kinsella’s music is an obvious natural progression from American Football, where he wrote most of the songs, played most of the guitar and sang everything. “It’s kind of a continuation,” he says.
Still, Owen certainly is its own entity. The blatantly avant-garde marks of Kinsella’s past bands nearly cease to exist in the context of Owen. Here he displays uncommonly creative guitar work with modest melodies that sound more like organic pacified indie rock than anything “singer/songwriter.” Kinsella befriends the concept of space in his songs, surrounding it with multiple layers of acoustic guitars, a reserved bass, intermittent percussion and his sincere, soft-spoken voice. The arrangement makes Mike something of a puppeteer of instruments—he gives each its own empathy, reservation and conscience.
The self-titled debut is a startlingly serene album. All tracks are linked together seamlessly, in an unbroken procession of 40 minutes, slipping through nine tracks of candidly-written songs.
“What I do is silly. [I] get on stage expecting anybody to care about what [I] do, like everybody should feel what [I] feel right now.
—Mike Kinsella
“Some of the parts I had from a couple years ago,” Kinsella explains. “Once I sat down and finally bought a microphone I thought sounded good, it probably took a month of me tooling around.”
He describes that month as a monotonous series of recording parts, the hardest part of which was knowing when everything was finished.
“I’ll work on the same part for a week and then days later something will hit me and I’ll totally change where the song goes,” he says. “That’s the funnest part: writing the songs and documenting them as well as you can.”
A whiz in the studio, Kinsella admits to a measure of distaste for performing his creations live.
“What I do is silly,” he says. “[I] get on stage expecting anybody to care about what [I] do, like everybody should feel what [I] feel right now. So many people have this thing about how it’s such a personal thing, sharing this stuff with you. It’s weird if you break it down like that. There’s a façade that comes with performing; I don’t know how to get around it. Considering I think that way, I don’t know how to justify what I do.”
In the end, it may not need justifying at all, especially when it all comes down to the basic need to communicate.
“There are very few people that make music that I feel aren’t faking it,” he says. “Only a few people speak to me musically or lyrically. When that happens, I appreciate it. I guess that’s why I do it, in hopes that a few people will click with it.”
After the tour is over, Mike plans on recording another album himself.
“That’s how the last album was done,” he says. “That’s what’s fun: I don’t know where the songs are yet until I record them and fool around with them for a while. Hopefully I’ll gain a routine of recording, touring, releasing, touring, something like that. I’ve just been in music so long, I don’t know what else I’d do. I’d rather be doing this than anything. As long as I can keep doing that, it’s worth doing.” pulse
Owen and Kyle Fischer (ex-Rainer Maria) play at Sursumcorda on Thurs., Feb. 28. 9 p.m. $7. 21+. 319 1st Ave. N., Mpls. 612-436-0700.
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