Review- Kassi Valazza: Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing
The cult of Kassi Valazza, founded in 2019 after her self-released debut album, Dear Dead Days, is sure to get a surge in membership following her newest release of Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, a stellar cosmic soup concocted of hazy, honky tonk highway vibes and that neon-lit, lilting Valazza warble.
Photo by Kait de Angelis
…Knows Nothing finds it's heart and soul in Valazza, and it’s feet in Portland-based band TK and the Holy Know Nothings, made up of Taylor Kingman (guitars, bass, vocals), Jay Cobb Anderson (harmonica, guitars, pedal steel, bass), Lewi Longmire (pedal steel, piano, bass, trumpet), Sydney Nash (organ, Farfisa, cornet, Wurlitzer), and Tyler Thompson (drums). The group’s swirling psychedelia combines with Valazza’s gutsy and graceful poetry for a singular sound that washes over the listener like a flash flood, heavy and without warning.
With a sound as wide open as the Western sky, album opener “Room in the City” paints a plaintive portrait of a touring and road weary musician longing for lost loves and home, as a reeling organ and sharp harmonica conjure images of dimly lit, small town bar rooms that inevitably all begin to bleed together as the highway takes one further and further from home.
“Did you think I’d be out here feeling lonely? / If I said I thought so too, it’d be a lie / When I talk to you it’s hard to be withholding / And I was born to chase this blue out of my eyes. / In the still, I often wonder about your breathing / I rise and fall to its rhythm late at night / Clay canyons turn to plaster in my grieving / And our ceiling overtakes the sky.”
Valazza’s writing technique seeks to ground us in a physical world of her conjuring until we can touch, taste, see, and feel the tangible mood of her choosing, at which point she uses that world to illustrate metaphors of the soul. It feels effortless and easy, and the listener follows along after Valazza through lyrics of sunshine and sadness, of smokey Saturday night honkey tonks, and Sundays in the country, of loves gained and then lost, and of existential ponderments complex and yet, expressed simply. The sculpted, but relaxed writing becomes ethereal when the backing band drops in with a full-fledged psychedelic jam, and the overall result is mood music so acute you feel the finger picking in the pains and twangs of your own heart. These songs leave you ever wistful, but still wanting more.
"Watching Planes Go By” spins a cautionary tale about the dangers of standing still in life and accepting one's own fate. The song sets a curious and cosmic atmosphere of psychedelic folk-rock as Valazza reflects on the struggles of moving on, "Autumn leaves turn to yellow / and green turns to jealousy / Watching days go by."
On “Corners,” finger-picked acoustic guitar dances with bounding bass and twinkling piano, as twanging telecaster and a gentle backing choir flow behind Valazza like a stream through a lonesome vista.
“The clouds move slower than they ever seemed to / Still, they find a way to pass me by,” she sings on her breezy lament about the longing that comes with an unhealthy love, “My friends, though, they wonder what I’m used to / To love a man who never treats me right.”
“Smile” opens with a familiar telecaster honky-tonk squawk and a half-time trot, but Valazza sings in deference to traditional bar-room tales. Hers is about acceptance when love is not enough, about being satisfied having met someone at all, and keeping only a farewell note as a souvenir.
"I guess I could have left the light on / Or stayed awake to see you home / But good intentions go unnoticed / And I fare better on my own." In her careful hands, the typical loved-and-lost tale becomes an ode to self-realization and the liberating feeling of going it alone.
Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing captures the romanticism of country crooners with the intuition of a realist poet. Exploring themes of love and longing through metaphors from the natural world, Valazza manages to cut straight to the heart of the human experience, her lucid songs full of delightfully languid characters that haunt the hallucinatory soundscapes her band creates.
Valazza has also recently signed with Fluff & Gravy Records, a label known for launching Anna Tivel and Margo Cilker.
Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing was produced by Tyler Thompson, Kassi Valazza and Taylor Kingman and engineered by Thompson. All original songs written by Kassi Valazza. Additional musicians on the album include Jay Cobb Anderson (harmonica, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, pedal steel, electric bass, Farfisa, vocals), Taylor Kingman (electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals), Lewi Longmire (pedal steel, piano, electric bass, trumpet, Leslie, fiddle, vocals), Sydney Nash (organ, pianet, Leslie, piano, Farfisa, acoustic 12-string guitar, cornet, Wurlitzer, electric bass), Tyler Thompson (drums, bass), Ned Folkerth (boran, bells, maraca, tambourine, triangle) and Jefferson Longmire (bark),
Go here to order Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing (out May 26): https://kassivalazza.bandcamp.com/album/kassi-valazza-knows-nothing
Check out tour dates here: https://www.kassivalazza.com/tour
Find out more about Kassi at the links below:
