KERALA DUST - Light, West (Sealed) (LP)

A groove-laden soundtrack for a movie never made After six releases and three years of extensive touring around Europe and the Americas, the Berlin-based live trio around producer and songwriter Edmund Kenny finds itself taking an ambitious, sprawling turn with Light, West. A groove-laden soundtrack for a movie never made, this record feels like the most comprehensive review of Kerala Dust’s varying influences and inspirations, merged into something wholly unique. The result of a year and a half’s work, the record’s most surprising aspect could well be that these varying musical tones all manage to feel part of a large, inter-connected musical narrative. Songwriter Edmund Kenny states that it was his most lyrically ambitious project to date. During the making of the record, he took a break from music to focus solely on the writing of short stories. Having toured non-stop for the past three years, Kenny was looking for new narrative directions and colours, which he initially found in literature before turning back to the music with a fresh perspective, the result of which is to be found all over the record. The songs depict his approach to relationships in a creeping, abstract fashion. Never wishing to be too obvious, his desire is to leave as much room for interpretation as possible to the listener - while leading them by the hand from image to image. This abstract imagery is underlined by Kenny’s mesmeric, driven musical composition - always telling a story while leaving its meanings up to the listener.