Caught in the Carousel

Kalli

While the City Sleeps
One Little Indian

I'll admit it. Kalli captured me in thirty seconds with his tender guitar arpeggios and minor folkpop croons. His ballads are filmic, evoking rain, rolling hills, and strangely enough, an Indian summer's Midwestern fields. Kalli, also known as Karl Henry, broke from his Icelandic band Without Gravity after 2005's Tenderfoot. While the City Sleeps, his 2007 solo debut, conjures a man sobered by loss and backed by little but the quiet of campfire smoke and stars. He sings of separation and loneliness in a thin, high-pitched voice that some have compared to Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke. Ultimately, the word that comes to mind is "pretty." Yet, like any pretty face, the architecture of these songs risks predictability and a saccharine taste. There is talk of burning bridges, ashes, and even graves. I waited for Kalli to rebel; I waited for him to succumb to the wrath and satisfying fuck off that a good break-up offers. Still, "Raindrops," "Jupiter," and "While the City Sleeps" are songs I've yearned for on my sunrise and sunset commutes. The record unfolds slowly, knitting the universal narrative of lost love. Layered harmonies, sad guitar, and tangled piano and keyboard combine in a distinctly Americana flavor. Some songs even recall the feeling behind emotive records like R.E.M.'s Murmur and The Jayhawks' Tomorrow the Green Grass. There is one forgivable moment of bad guitar soloing, but most of Kalli's fillers are moving. Even in his nod to Coldplay in "Jupiter," he manages not to overdo the trademark climactic build. Not surprisingly, Kalli describes songwriting as an organic process that has much more to do with the wooden instrument in one's bare hands than about any fancy electronic gadget. In the end, it is the honesty and intimacy of these songs that make them so compelling: "You are the rain and you are the stars that never answer...I'm falling fast to the ground/ It's raining hard now/ no matter where I go." And who hasn't felt like that?

—Alex Mattraw