King Post Kitsch – Monomaniac
The only time I have met him, enigmatic, reclusive Scot Charlie from King Post Kitsch… no, wait sorry. Actually Charlie did introduce himself at the Meursault album launch down at the Old Queen’s Head a couple of months ago, and enigmatic and reclusive he most certainly was not.
Apparently that’s turned up in a couple of reviews recently though, and in his everso gentle reminder to me that I had yet to actually review this EP despite popping a track on the podcast recently, Charlie sounded a bit nonplussed at the description, so I thought I might as well mention it here. He is not enigmatic. Or reclusive. Okay? He just happens to live in London.
Maybe there is something to the enigma chat after all though, because this is an oddly constructed EP and no mistake. Having hit you with a cracking pop song first off – the lo-fi, slightly old-fashioned, slightly Beatlesy Walking on Eggshells – it drifts into a sort of dream state with the stuttering, uncomfortable Portland Street, before drifting off into the odd reverie of the title track. This last song sounds a little like a cross between Luna and Au Revoir Simone.
Anyhow, that sequence gives the EP an odd emotional trajectory. It’s a bit like those sequences of junkies in Trainspotting, where you get the intensity of the hit, before everything drifts into some sort of out of focus trance-like state. If I remember our conversation correctly I think Charlie has recorded a whole album’s worth of material, and in many ways this sounds more like a chunk out of an album than something which was originally supposed to be an EP, although maybe I just hear that because I know about the album to begin with.
Either way, there are really good songs on this EP, and it represents another step forward for someone I think has real promise.
King Post Kitsch – Walking on Eggshells
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Website | King Post Kitsch on Bandcamp (download EP here for free)
Well what the hell am I going to do with all these thousands of CHARLIE THE ENIGMA t shirts then?!
Also, just because you have met him doesn’t mean that there isn’t a wee bit of an air of mystery about the lad for the rest of us and, yes, that is because he lives in London and there are no pictures of him. Instead there is just very nice artwork of buildings and a video of a farm. Which I really fucking like.
I like that an awful lot, but, slightly Beatlesy? Really?
If you’d have said slightly Kinksy I’d have been right there with you. I’d have given you slightly Small Facesy, too; but you’re not having slightly Beatlesy, sorry.
And before you start, I backed you up about the Manchester thing on the Male Bonding review.
Oh alright, slightly fucking Kinksy then.
Kinky? Ooh err missus.
Charlie the Kinky Enigma. He’ll like that.
Sent him some Agent Provocateur lingerie with the words ‘my enigma is bigger than yours’ in lacy stitching on the back of the french knickers. Hope he doesn’t mind.