Preview: Jasmin Kaset and Birdcloud
I’m trying to make good on a commitment to bring this blog back to life through the revolutionary practice of blogging more often. That’s going to mean doing things more quickly, which isn’t easy because I tend to let pieces of writing build up in my head–like the one about the Nashville blue comedy duo Birdcloud that’s been gestating over the past month–before actually putting them down to text. That particular piece became more complex when I discovered that half of Birdcloud, Jasmin Kaset, has a whole solo catalog of smart, complex, and sonically adventurous songs all on her own, and all very different from Birdcloud’s disconcertingly raunchy aggro-folk.
I’m wary of making too much of this contrast. Creative people work in all kinds of different directions, sometimes all at once. Its only the post-Bob-Dylan-1965-Rock-Authenticity Mandate that makes us think that an artist’s work isn’t legitimate unless it’s the result of a SOUL BARING STRUGGLE TO REPRESENT EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE AND WILL BE FOREVER. Moreover, as I’m going to argue when I get around to it, Birdcloud’s material is a lot more complex once you get under the hood than it seems from the outside, full of nuanced characters, inconvenient desires, and unreliable narrators.
Still, its quite a contrast. Listen to/watch this:
and this:
And feel your head spin.
No Radio Free Lunch! 