September 2024
Anti- Records 88009-1
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Singer-songwriter Katy Kirby’s debut solo album, Cool Dry Place (2021), was released on the independent label Keeled Scales in 2021. The album received warm reviews and made the end-of-year best-of lists of several magazines. Kirby moved to Anti- Records for Blue Raspberry, but she stayed with Alberto Sewald and Logan Chung, the two producers who worked on the first album. Cool Dry Place was a good showcase for Kirby’s songwriting talents, but her sophomore album brings her voice forward in the mix and contains a richer instrumental and sonic palette.
The songs on Blue Raspberry grew out of a period of self-revelation. Kirby explains: “‘Blue Raspberry’ is the oldest song on the record. I began to write it a month or so before I realized, I think I’m queer.” While Kirby is singing about queer love, the songs highlight the universal difficulties, joys, and occasionally humorous moments of romance—especially when it’s new.
The album’s title also embodies its recurring theme: the tension between how we perceive a lover and that person’s reality. Blue raspberry is a manufactured flavor, but it’s still sweet. The title song itself begins with Kirby singing the melody while she shadows it, double-tracked, in a deeper register. Kirby accompanies herself at first with guitar and Wurlitzer piano, and as the arrangement fills out, she adds beautiful harmonies to the song.
“Blue Raspberry” shows Kirby’s poetic ear, which lets her capture the mixture of exhilaration and pain that romance can bring:
I am under her heel like rock candy
Crushed to glitter, laid out on the concrete
And the happiest kind of sorry for myself
Chung creates a swirling synthesizer line for the spritely “Cubic Zirconia,” where Kirby further explores her theme. Is the manufactured gem any less attractive than the real thing? Is someone less beautiful because they don’t fit the standards defined by society?
Fresh off the market, but you’re nobody’s prize
Magazine quiz called you apple shape
You look to me like dollar signs
You look like dollar signs
Slightly distorted electric and acoustic guitars join the keyboards on “Cubic Zirconia” to create a beguiling backdrop to Kirby’s unforced but effective singing. The lyrics have more complexity than a brief look can reveal. Kirby describes the façade a lover assumes when flirting in a bar, and hurls a devastating burn: “But if you’re coming home this late / You know you’d better be drunk.”
Kirby’s singing is delightfully understated, and the arrangements highlight her voice while also creating evocative backgrounds for the songs. Sewald’s Wurlitzer gives “Drop Dead” its form, but his guitar lines carry it along with wit and just enough force. Austin Arnold’s firm and precise drumming adds a solid foundation that keeps the song centered as additional voices, acoustic guitars, and synth effects filter in.
“Fences” is centered on Kirby’s voice and simple acoustic guitar, but other instruments help cradle her voice. Studio effects give the instruments an edgy feel that highlights the song’s haunting imagery. Odd sounds fly in and out of “Redemption Arc” as the song rises and falls in intensity around Kirby’s calm presentation. There’s a sharpness underneath the serenity, which gains focus from its contrast with the occasional roughness and dissonance of the music.
A distorted keyboard and brushed drums announce “Alexandria,” which soon settles into a placid tempo. Low strings introduce a dark tone, and an Ebowed guitar soon leads to a more expanded string and voice arrangement. Finally, the music splinters and shreds. Kirby can capture the complexity and possible danger of love in a few well-chosen words:
Kiss me
Up against the guardrail
I’d crack open my chin
Before I would let you let me
Pull you over the edge
Kirby’s lyrics have layers of meaning that invite you to give them careful thought over repeated plays of the record. She’s literate but doesn’t let cleverness or erudition get in the way of a well delivered observation. Kirby returns to cubic zirconia as a metaphor in a few songs, and at first I thought she did so too often and too easily, but in the context of her overall points the idea connects the songs.
Blue Raspberry closes with “Table,” a deconstruction of the Christian faith that Kirby grew up with in Texas. The scripture references are indirect. The song is the most aggressive one on the album—distorted guitars and a hard-snapping snare drum give it a slightly angry edge that contrasts with Kirby’s sweet vocal delivery. Kirby captures the allure of faith as well as the ways its practitioners can fall horribly short. She seems, however, to hold out some hope, or a memory of faith’s promises:
He prepares a table for me and
One of these days I’ll have to sit down and eat
Sewald and Chung play various instruments throughout Blue Raspberry, and their production—almost certainly in close collaboration with Kirby—gives the album a consistent and atmospheric feel. All the tracks have something going on in the background that enhances them, sometimes only subtly, but even songs with layers of instruments and effects have enough space for each element to register clearly. Kirby’s voice is out in front and well centered in the recording.
I couldn’t find out who pressed my vinyl copy of Blue Raspberry, but it was flat, centered, and quiet. The sound on vinyl was deep and rich, which allowed me to appreciate the many elements that went into the music. I was surprised that this reasonably priced LP ($20, in USD) was pressed with such care.
As good as Blue Raspberry is, I think Kirby is in the early stages of a career that will almost certainly grow in talent and accomplishment. Her skills as a melodist are strong, and she writes songs that highlight her voice. Her lyrics are intelligent, and she delivers them with wit and passion. Let’s see what she does next.
. . . Joseph Taylor
