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CMU Approved
Approved: Leah Kardos
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 11 September 2017
Hey, the Approved column is back from its summer break? Did you miss it? No need to answer, I know you did. Let’s kick off with something that came out during that break, the latest material from Leah Kardos.
For her new album – ‘Ricocochet’ – Kardos was keen to shake off some of the seriousness that can dominate in the classical and electronica fields she inhabits. Given that her last album – 2013’s ‘Machines’ – was a collection of operatic pieces with lyrics drawn from spam emails, she already seemed to be applying a healthy sense of playfulness and humour to her music making. However, listening to ‘Ricocochet’, it quickly becomes clear that she’s found a new freedom in her writing this time round.
“I was feeling personally a bit bogged down in the ‘ambient’ piano-triads-with-lots-of-reverb-plus-chopped-beats world”, she writes on her website. “So I thought of the Rococo artists with their humour, wit, eye for leftfield detail and general lightness of being, and tried to adopt some of that into what I was doing”.
She continues: “I read over and over again that Bowie’s process regularly involved a risk, making oneself uncomfortable, going out into the water to the point where your feet no longer touch the bottom. So that’s inspiring and comforting. I don’t really make music for any other reason than the sheer love and absolute delight of the creative process, so why stick to the well-trodden path?”
Listen to ‘Open’ from the new album here:
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