4/5
Blue Seoul.
Times like these have been hard in 2020. Echo that. But going 'Blue' like Joni Mitchell, our KATIE-in a year dominated once again by the 'Dynamite' of BTS (who could just 'Be' and break streaming records) and South Korean sister act BLACKPINK (always needs to be shouted in their signature style of call and response) with their Netflix movie and 'The Album'-shows that K Pop is more than just their two top tier acts like Twice or the haze of Heize the deeper it gets. The Far East nation dominating this still in quarantine revolving world of entertainment, taking the lead from Hollywood, even to those trumped up idiots who think it's just a 'Parasite'. Get the big picture like you missed the best game and name changing one. There's nothing foreign or lost in translation about kids in the West singing along in Korean like Beatlemania in reverse or the world getting beautifully smaller and closer even at an isolated social distance. Oh and those people that didn't show up at your rally Donald?! You can thank the ARMY for that. The only time going to war and trolling does some good. Swashbuckling in a Brooklyn subway, guerilla live performance in the New York City King Kong, thumped his chest and owned. Remembering that duet with Ty Dolla $ign and the dolphin like, echoing beat. We're still thinking about that like zoning at 4am in the morning to 'Thinkin About You' or the one that middle of the night neon vibe atmospherically reminds us of (I'll never tell). Or those great Khalid ('Talk'), Lil Nas X ('Old Town Road') and Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello ('Senorita) reworked covers we wish were still on Spotify like we wish that service would pay its artist more, forget an end of the year wrap (that's how you really say thanks conglomerates). The singing idol and K-Pop Star 4 contest winner has already logged an incredible EP with last year's 'LOG', featuring soulful songs like 'Future Love', 'Love Kills' and the incredible 'Instructions' that you need to follow like her playlist page or a Jermaine Dupri one. But now after the science fiction 'Echo' of an incredibly cinematic classic hit single in April for an artist who like her Korean genre takes pop even deeper than its polished production with actual movies instead of music videos for its actual poetry and not just songs, Katie gets even deeper and darker in a soulful stride into the personal. Especially for the epidemic levels of suicide levelling South Korea, the Far East and the wide world in solitary confinement right now. 'Our Time Is Blue' and her time is now.
Ghost In The Shell (original...we love you Scarlett and Netflix's computer animated '2049', but this is where it's at) plugged into some anime amazing artwork, Katie Kim (who dropped the last name to become a Google search nightmare like fellow R&B singer Joe, but All CAPS worthy of carrying that common name all by herself) strokes some soulful resonance for your radiating speakers. Even track-by-track, hot take offering more inspired insight on Instagram, storytelling how each song on her most personal project yet came to be. 'Classic' which is exactly that to its name was inspired by neo soul star Jill Scott and her 'Long Walk' as Katie herself made her way to the Subway, headphones on like "do you want it on you collard greens". As this neo K Pop (is she that or have we just coined that?) says this 'Classic' takes her back to her college days for the yearbook. Singing, "picture us Sonny and Cher/your hands in my hair" like it's in his kiss for this Polaroid moment whilst you put your hands in the air. As in a snapshot Kim tells us her young adult upbringing was surrounded by R&B, jazz and soul music. Imagining she'd be making this type of "ear music" years later that she really is. "Taking it back to the classic one time." On the lead single to 'Our Time Is Blue', 'Our Time' KATIE pulls up on the streetlight on a blue anime street surrounded by her billboards for a track that is inspired by movies and books that talk about our love like Brandy and Kanye. "Reminiscing on our time" for an ear candy chorus as smooth and sweet as walking the street, hand-in-hand, to the touch of skin. "Trying to find the magic in the moments" with Leven Kali for the other half of this EP's title track, 'Blue', K tries to "find what's more important" for these clubbed Saturdays and church Sunday's, "Neon lights or coffee in the morning". Compelling classic Dolla $ign affording chemistry with Kali that you could just taste it as he speaks on it, "show me all your colours your an artist". That's 'Blue' for you. A track this singer cherishes so much it makes her want to cry, "from the moment the guitar starts arpeggiating". Alone in the zone in LA in colours of orange, pink, purple and of course...ocean blue.
Plugged into what's real on the 'Faux' of a leather strong track, the Korean Kim goes genuinely hard on a situation with a record label that reveals just how shallow they are, as artists barely treading water in where they deserve to be spiritually and financially search for new depths to their character and craft. "I trip on my trust/A bit of a mess/My worst and best/Yeah you caught it/But if you know me/I'm more than you see/So somber and sweet if I'm honest". Offering more vision behind "the chrome on your sunglasses" she asks, "tell me what you see, when you look at me"...the future and right now not in the rearview like the radio of her 'Love Kills' Lo-Fi remix lyric video for the singer who recorded some of this extended play quarantined in her parents car. This is my kind of blue Miles. Tune into more behind why everything fell through on this deal right before the ink dried on the paperwork for a world that needs to be handshake stronger than oak, but right now sanitizes anything that comes close. For the record we should only keep a distance physically and only wear masks that protect us from corona, not mental ones that hide a villain behind what we really see. "They were looking for a K-Pop artist and I wasn't really K-Pop" the K soul star (by jove I think we've got it) says in a "don't judge me on preconceived notions and don't try to make me into who you think I am" (amen...Korean music is more than K Pop and we were sorry to paint you with the same brush. We will leave our mistake and apology in here for posterity) before she helps 'Teach A Man' like Haim's 'Man From The Magazine' c### on a track that she says isn't quite like her classics 'Thinkin' Bout You' or 'Remember', but is just as sassy and vulnerable. And in this honest 'Women In Music' year of big guns like a 'Chromatica' Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus last week and Taylor Swift surprise releases of 'Folklore'. And of course the greatest record of these terrible 12 months in the Valley Girls and sisters 'Part III'. What's great records from greats like Norah Jones (her solo 'Pick Me Up' and Puss N Boots supergroup), Alicia Keys ('Alica' to go with the autobiography), Lianne La Havas ('Lianne La Havas') without this? All 'Punisher' Phoebe Bridgers has done from 'Kyoto' and all 'Iris' Goo Goo Dolls cover co-singer, Maggie Rogers is about to do with her 'Past Life', 'Notes From The Archives' this month. And of course here in Japan, Aimyon and South Korea's own Blackpink ("BLACKPINK!"). In all of this, what's a year of the power or women in music without its future like, "ready for a change of mind" for "somebody to give me a vibe"? "I could write a book/I could write a poem/If you want to read it/Baby there's no harm/I might ring you up just to see if you're around/'cause lately I've been stuck with my thoughts inside the house" she 'Lullaby' sings to us tonight on the blue evenings classic closer on what she says is a "super soothing" 'Rockabye Baby'. Now what could be more comfortable in a year most vulnerable? One we need one time in our year of blue. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Our Time', 'Blue (Feat. Leven Kali)', 'Faux'.
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