Spine by Kee Avil

I know I’m not the only one who sees a clean break in their personality between 2019 and 2022, to the point where the thought of that previous self living a day in my current life feels vaguely uncomfortable. This discomfort structures the aesthetic direction of Spine by Kee Avil, an experimental pop album that balances beautiful, airy vocals with gritty, organic, noisy, and  dissonant instrumentals to show us the two-faced nature of time. Vocals that in any other context could trigger Billie-Eilish-esque dark pop superstardom fit surprisingly well into these fascinating instrumental contexts featuring Slint-style guitars, aggressive electronic percussion, and squelchy textures lifted straight out of the noise scene. As a result, our ears cling for dear life to these more familiar vocal sounds all while our souls dangle helplessly over this bottomless pit of abstract experimentalism, mirroring our vague yet vital attachment to our former selves despite the brain-shattering disconnect between the past and present.