More than once, the shapeshifting experimental musician Klein has joked with interviewers that her next move will be toward the mainstream—a hip-hop album, a drill album, signing to Roc Nation, moving to L.A. to become an Oscar-winning actress. And every time, she’ll return with a record that sounds like a church organ gaining sentience in a Category 3 hurricane, or something just as dubiously marketable. It’s a revealing setup, though, because the South London artist has consistently positioned herself as an outsider to the walled-off world of the avant-garde, more schooled in Hot 97 hits than the underground artists—Dean Blunt, Mica Levi—to whom she was initially compared.
Eight albums into Klein’s discography, that claim gets harder to back up. She’s performed at London’s Barbican and ICA, adapted her own stage musical into a film, and has Björk’s number saved in her contacts. And yet, as her brilliantly weird live performances attest, Klein still defies categorization. On marked she doubles down, restricting herself almost entirely to a palette of blistering guitar squall that you’d more likely associate with the anti-rock extremism of Wolf Eyes and Aaron Dilloway. Technically, she’s explored this sound before. “top shotta,” from 2022’s Cave in the Wind, could be a lost bootleg of an Einstürzende Neubauten soundcheck; “grit,” from 2020’s Frozen, sounds like a far-off cement mixer munching down on a Telecaster. But on marked, almost every minute is claimed by Klein’s guitar, distorted to oblivion and shuddering with feedback.
Overdriven riffs burn holes in the VU meter on “gully creepa,” opening a portal to a nightmarish loop that’s half dub soundsystem, half doom metal. Muddy drones are juxtaposed against trebly scrapings and blown-out drum machines on “Blow the Whistle”—a leap into heavy new territory for Klein, but one that will feel familiar to fans of JK Flesh and Dreamcrusher. It’s tempting to interpret the mood as one of anguished introspection. On “more than like” she goes swimming in an inky pool of piano, sinking into the sustained low notes, despondent. That’s followed by the extended circular drones of “enemy of the state,” where serrated chords are slowly mulched into one enormous slug of noise, à la Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra.
Klein’s signature flamboyant vocal runs are largely absent from the album; ditto the patched-in supporting voices that often populate her dreamy narratives. Exceptions come near the end on three a cappella fragments: the voice-note R&B of “frontin,” an off-the-cuff mini-duet with La Timpa titled “neek,” and the closing “exclusive.” Flipping the script on the entire album, “exclusive” is pure, unmistakable Klein—hyper-melismatic vocals, a pitch-shifted loop over ticking trap drums, a snotty rap (repurposed from “black famous,” on last year’s touched by an angel): “I just look around and what do I see/Another mini me,” she spits through crackling Auto-Tune, “Sweet girl big dreams/They call her fleabag.” The contrast with the previous 45 minutes is like pressing a bag of frozen peas against a bruise.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
