The Aesthetics of Kacy & Clayton: The Siren's Song

Kacy & Clayton in all their orange-tinged glory,
looking with casual fascination into a space beyond the
viewer's head. They've got that rural Saskatchewan gothic,
intellectual farmer feel to them. 

A disclaimer: 
Although this blog claims to be about astropsychology, I think the presence of that small but significant "etc." gives me some amount of leeway. Hopefully the nonexistent readers that frequent this spottily updated blog are not appalled by the brief change in content. Sorry, my imaginary friends, sometimes an album is just too good.
In general, the flavor of this blog is going to gradually change over the next month or so.











Tidal is often a pretty hazardous musical platform. I say "hazardous" because it is massive. The sheer excess of music available to listen to is almost a type of travesty. Artists sift in and out of the opening page in a constantly renewable stream; one after the other, illustrating, among other things, how insignificant most individual pieces of art truly are in the grand scheme of human invention. This is not said to express that making art is futile. It is certainly not futile. I'm just saying: the amount of art we have readily available to us is overwhelming.

There is always something more required to consume in terms of contemporary art; musical, visual, written. It's tiring as hell. Personally, I don't have the energy required to "keep up" with it. I get far too obsessed with individual albums to move on quickly to something else in pursuit of knowledge alone. Plus, it's difficult to give all new music a fighting chance, when you're primarily using album covers as indications of what might be inside. We don't have to like, sit still with select pieces of art anymore, yunno?

Anyway, about a week ago I was looking through the daunting menagerie of Tidal's new releases, and came upon the above album cover. Isn't it pretty? Isn't it orange? Don't the two alluring youths on the cover seem to come from some other, older world? (The answer, clearly, is yes, and if you did not think, verbatim; "don't those two alluring youths seem to come from some other, older world," I would suggest you listen to more folk music.)

Kacy & Clayton, otherworldly people that they are, have perfected two necessary aspects of songwriting: contrast and variation. Contrast and variation are what keep albums interesting to listen to. It is incredibly easy for folk artists to lazily wade into a sort of sleepy, dull, repetition that Kacy & Clayton miraculously do not. "Miraculously," because they strictly adhere to a very traditional musical format. You can expect a verse, a hook, a bridge, each at their proper times, there is no unexpected transition. Nonetheless, something about the way Kacy's syrupy vocals sit atop Clayton's transformative, rhythmic fingerpicking, is so consistently charming that there is never a moment when this pairing tires. Together, they are able to hit these beautiful, higher, metallic notes, while also being grounded by more watery, earthy, human sounds. In short, they complete each other.

Of course, I am always most invested in the lyrics of any given band, and Kacy & Clayton also have extremely distinct thoughts. In their previous album, Strange Country, they were primarily storytellers; narrating spooky, insulated scenes and the spooky, distant people that resided within these. The tone was collective and separate; Kacy & Clayton were not the focus of their own music, their characters were.

In The Siren's Song, however, the perspective belongs more consistently to the speaker, to "I" than "they." It is more an album about personal emotion than impersonal situation. Still, Kacy & Clayton are masterfully maintain a type of "distant intimacy." It remains unclear if the songs Kacy sings are about her experience, or Clayton's, and even when using a more modern, first person voice, there is the feeling that she is singing something far more ancient.

In "The World Has Seven Wonders," she sings; "the talk of the town drove me into the city/I went looking for affection but all I got was pity/got a call from mother wishing I was well/I didn't have the heart to say the city's living hell." What incredibly gorgeous, emotionally intuitive lyrics: so sparse, but with such large ideas. In every lyric, Kacy & Clayton are able to conjure the entire lives of the people they speak about. One couplet holds an entire universe.

Aesthetically, Kacy & Clayton err on the alien, the mysterious. There is a pronounced feeling of displacement, longing, and discomfort. "The city" is a living hell, lifeboats are built from envy, words are kept in the dark, sirens call, and love is lost and gained. Only the last song, "Go And Leave Me" displays any type of comfort or indifference. The audience is left reminded that Kacy & Clayton are still distant, still unreal, that they "don't mind" if we leave them. They will still be there, somewhere, out in the plains of Saskatchewan, with the cows and the dirt and the grass. It is an excellent album.