Labels: Southern
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I guess you’ve noticed that whenever music doesn’t seem to fit a category it seems to get lumped into [category]-core. I’ve seen some pretty weird examples of this the last couple of days. Dreamcore. Sounds nice. But my absolute favourite is this: Cuddlecore. Man! I’ve gotst to hear some ‘cuddlecore’, what in the world is that?! But anyway, Karate don’t really fit into a category that I know, so I am going to invent: Karatecore. Sounds pretty hard doesn’t it?
I really want to like this a lot, as it could make me be really cool. Karate play quiet, slow, lazy, well, sort of pop music. But with like jazz influences. And if you like jazz, then you have to be way cool. So this album would automatically make me cooler if I liked it a lot. Alas, it just has to make do with being nice background music for when it’s dead late and you can’t use a volume higher than, say, zero. And I have to make do with being not cool.
The vinyl version comes on this great big thick slab, and for those who know such technical details, it’s 180mg, if that’s its weight or something. I have no idea. And over their nine songs, Karate break out some really slow and laidback, late night songs. If you’re not sleepy when you put it on, any prolonged listen would help you on the way, not that I mean it’s boring! Just relaxing. The vocals are in the mode of the Van Pelt / Lapse – i.e. virtually spoken. They do actually have one bouncy, sort of more upbeat track, “Diazapam”. The band would probably want me shot if they read this (some chance, phew!), but it makes me think of a jazzy Promise Ring. Not too much, but there is definitely that feel to it at times.
I dunno, it’s pretty good, and I like to have the occasional record in my collection that doesn’t sound even remotely like any of the others. And it would be ideal to put on if you just wanted some high quality background music, I bet some people would find it perfect for particular situations. If you know what I’m saying.
Erm, right. Yeah.