By Deuce

There’s no telling what you might encounter on K4LT’s latest, the five-cut EP entitled Endgame. The unexpected, perhaps. Certainly unconventionality, in all the myriad forms that struck the musician/singer/songwriter/vocalist/producer. There’s also a healthy dosage of the unknown, and a thorough exploration—if not outright excavation—of what exactly that entails.

But it’s certainly off the beaten path, or just about any path, which is never bad in today’s era of copycat mimicry of pop artists imitating each other while using the same producers.

Most of the typical elements you’d expect in 21^st century music such as, let’s say, drums, don’t really surface on this work of art. There’s some extremely creative percussion on “Fugae”, with what sounds like a few synths scraped together resembling high hats, and some highly effected ‘tick’ functioning as a snare.

Other times there’s little more than a heavily distorted snare, which shows up perhaps halfway through the ditty on cuts like the EP opener “Boarding Pass”. “Loading Screen” manages to encapsulate a few scatter shot kicks and something too minute to be described as a snare performing that duty. But general patterns of rhythm, AKA ‘kick, clap, etc.’, don’t make the cut.

Instead, there’s protracted synths, almost all of them slow. These set the stage to showcase two elements that are about as traditional as you’ll get on this opus: K4LT’s guitar and his vocalizing. The former is as exceptional as it is utilitarian, ranging the gamut from winsome acoustic notes to the outrageousness of the distorted electric variety.

But you can still hear the sundry of tubes, amps, and fineries the artist employed to tweak their sound to his and your liking. His vocals mirror much of the synth work and at times range deep, low notes that are just as elongated and affective as the instruments he’s playing. Such is the case on “Pass” in which he suddenly segues from this style to a distant falsetto.

On other occasions, such as on “Screen”, his vocals are mixed below the lead guitar and, from all appearances, for good reason. The latter’s one of those western movie inspired, tubed wavering deals that could pack a room or a stadium on its own.

Yep, there’s just about no telling what you’ll encounter on this project—even after giving it a listen.