Karl Blau is a curious study. At least, that’s the way the story goes. Vanishing into alleged obscurity. Emerging from the shadows. A supporting musician for his influences, like Reiko Kudo and the Tennis Coats. A devious art/pop chemist creating elaborate song potions, K Records artist Karl Blau’s record Nature’s Got Away isn’t hatched from the realm of the typical.
The forty-five minute, 12-song collection is, at base level, a journey as interesting as the artist who created it. From the loose premise of lost contact with nature and man, Blau extrapolates on a multi-faceted theme, utilizing natural sound and environments, both ecological and personal. He sings about chicken coops (“Before Telling Dragons”), makes funny allusion to indie popsters Fiery Furnaces (“Nothing For Me”), and frizzes out, absurdly toasting Mother Earth and her chain-of-life creations (“Mockingbird Diet”), a song so innocent, its refrains could be passed from mother to toddler son. All of this might seem like thematic minutiae, but it is both amply supported and contradicted by the album’s one part raw, other part acoustic zeitgeist; it’s also how the whole thing is ironically trussed with warm electronics (the way the key-laden “Moved On From Dreams” opens, for example, is pure “turn on” affect). Blau’s keys twinkle in familiar root-rock rhythm, while his guitars come in quite often overblown and slightly fuzzed around the edges. His voice, well, the talk-talk style is intoxicating. Think Mark Kozelek.
For all of this presentation, Blau works extremely well within the boundaries he’s created for his record. It’s quite a musical achievement. Whether he’s playfully pining away about nature or building one strange musical connection after another, Blau’s record is watertight. While the album—and its cover—hilariously states that Nature’s Got Away, the subtle capture of that aesthetic has not.
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