Drayan! - Kai Whiston: Review
Kai Whiston
is a London based electronic music producer who has worked with a number of contemporary electronica's most interesting artists. Drayan! is a mixtape that follows Kai's sophomore album in 2019. Also in 2019 Kai served as one third of the band Gloo with Iglooghost and BABii on their album XYZ.
Review By Lav:
My introduction to Kai Whiston was his Kai Whiston Bitch album, but the first time I got to actually review his music was the next year on Gloo's XYZ which I enjoyed. Given that we got projects from fellow Gloo albums Iglooghost and BABii earlier this year it felt fitting that Kai also got something out, and something pretty exciting at that. Drayan! is a heavily thematic mixtape about Kai's alien son who is fittingly named Drayan. As weird as that sounds it is 100% the case and if you'd like to have Drayan give you your horoscope check it out here. Given that in the past one of my few complaints about Kai has bee a lack of truly defining features in his music to set him apart as an artist, it's safe to say that nobody else could have done Drayan aside from Kai Whiston.
The only track off the mixtape that was released before its surprised announcement was the closing track Stingray, a collaboration with EDM star EDEN. The song has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the mixtape thematically or sonically which is really my only complaint because otherwise I think it's solid. The vocals are painfully standard but the instrumental walks a cool line between having reserved, minimalist verses and a bright exciting hook.
Generally I'm not nearly as crazy about the back half of the record as I am the front half, because this thing gets off to an awesome start. Hybrid Child is the opener and it's a vibrant infectious start to the record that takes its time building up to a satisfying release. The eruption of biblical walls of sound alongside the scratching percussion and pseudo string sounds is quite the moving release. The vocal samples at the end of the song set up quite a bit of the thematic context of this coming of age alien story. That means that the next song up is the title track Drayan! which kicks off with a trip hop like combination of weird shrill keys and a punchy drum beat. There are some absolutely mutilated vocals performing refrains that sound tortured but in a very compelling way. Once the voice gets compressed on the back end I'm not quite as into the performance but the eerie beat remains strong from start to finish.
Acid Richter is another track that you could almost break down into a house song but it certainly has some more going on, starting with the grumbling vocals. I actually like the percussion kick quite a bit and find some of the refrains weirdly catchy. The song is a murky hard-hitter from the moment it starts and it ducks out before anything start to feel routine. 2much starts off like a brighter and louder interpretation of Acid before warping it into a much more abstract piece of electronica. The beats are still there but you can hardly make them out over the glistening electronic blips and soft but consuming distorted vocals. It's another moment of striking weirdness that I find myself enjoying. The last major highlight on the record is Bothering Me a properly danceable combination of hard-hitting beats and wandering squelchy synths that evokes SOPHIE, something I don't say lightly. The personality of the song however continues to stick to something quite surrealist with the repetitious methodical pitched up vocals hanging over everything in the mix. It sounds like an illegal warehouse rave in outer space in the year 4228 and I am LIVING for it.
Unfortunately most of the other tracks on the records second half don't quite stand out in the same ways. Enabling Dreamtime Communication Via Distortion Implant Device is the shortest track of the bunch, it's name is longer than it is. Between the distant muttering in the instrumental and the pitched up vocals it's difficult to make out any of the most interesting things the track has going on in the background. Once it finally does kick off everything is over before it's even started. Held has some of the tapes cleanest vocals which go along with it being one of the more accessible songs. The first half of the track is filled with refrains that could even belong in an electro pop track before they get chopped up, mixed around and even reversed leading up to the songs massive breakdown around the halfway point. The flood of clipping bass, icy synths and booming percussion that follows is quite maximal and while I see what Kai was going for I'm not crazy about it. I would really like to be enjoying all the songs details but I continue to get lost in the haze of noise while listening to it, as it's difficult to make out much of anything distinct. I wanted Betty to be a Taylor Swift cover really badly. but thankfully it isn't. Unfortunately the vocal effects on this track do start to get pretty grating when Kai or whoever is singing wails away through awkward pitched up refrains alongside some untouched vocals. The combination is awkward enough on its own but when you throw in the planky strings in the instrumental it definitely makes for my least favorite song here. Maybe it should have been a Taylor cover.
Drayan! is pretty damn cool. Not only are the sounds on display here versatile and exciting but the concept adds a lot to the music and makes for the most definitive thing I think I've ever heard Kai do. Unfortunately some of the artistic choices on the back half of the record failed to really drive its excellence home with me. but the project certainly proves that Kai is capable of crafting a universe around his own sound, the lack of which had been my biggest complaint about his music up to this point. When all is said and done this is an exciting, futuristic and versatile collection of electronica in it's various forms that is greater than the sum of its parts. 7/10
This cover is strange and while I like the concept of it I dislike the execution. It's oddly attractive and you really don't know where to look. You could go so far out with this idea and the cover really doesn't go as far as I'd like it to. The subject is fluid and moves your eye around which is really cool. While this cover makes you wonder what is happening, it doesn't have any type of pop. 6/10
