YEDM introduced K4LT as a new artist in July 2023, with their ambient and pensive track called “LCPD.” It was a continuation of his first EP, game over, and it took two years to make, in addition to a departure from its original style. Now focused more on electronic production, “LCPD” has generated an intriguing amount of buzz, both from the industry and fans. However, audiences are warned not to settle for the heavenly, dreamlike atmosphere of “LCPD.” A very different mood arrives with K4lT’s latest track, “This Room (Reprise).”
Belin-based K4LT, whose stage name is a stylized version of the German word “kalt” (trans. “cold” in English), has said its new series of songs is a reflection of the isolation created by COVID lockdowns and the People's struggle even now to remember how to socialize. “This Room,” released earlier this month, with its pseudo-gothic synth style, relentless, fast beat, and ennui and anxiety in the lyrics, offers an eerily accurate picture of what many people are experiencing post-pandemic. .
…The experience of more and more friends (and probably you too) becoming modern hermits, giving up parts of life like relationships or having fun in life. I just try to achieve it without putting effort into what would make them really happy. And the composer fears how that will end (reading the “list of deaths by year”). In the end the song is about not accepting these defeats and fighting to get up, to be motivated (“get up to interfere”).
“This Room (Reprise)” is also intended as a throwback to a song of the same name by The notwist, one of K4LT's biggest influences. This is not a remix or cover, but a complete reimagining of the song, as The Notwist's original is more straight shoegaze and post punk with some interesting vintage and experimental interludes, which might remind some fans of the middle era. Radiohead either Death Taxi for Cutie merging with Venetian traps. Refreshingly honest in naming his influences and inspirations, K4LT's version is both a continuation of the track's original tone and an inversion. While The Notwist's original is soft, vulnerable and largely rock-based, K4LT's reprise is semi-industrial and itchy, rhythmic, impatient, bordering on frustrating. A statement contrary to the original, but no less shocking.
Perhaps “This Room (Reprise)” was intended to show the difference in the way we manage relationships and interact with each other since lockdown. Instead of focusing on a relationship and where it is going, we constantly look outward while staying inward, unsatisfied but unwilling to do anything about it. A technology-driven futility and an inability to process emotions through relationships – or even at all – mark this track. Yet that itch is there, K4LT warns, and it's ready to come to the surface, the foreshadowing of the last line repeating before the song cuts out: “…up to interfere; willing to interfere.”
“This Room (Reprise)” is out now and available to stream along with other K4LT works on Spotify. They can also be purchased at band camp.
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