Sundara Karma, Kill Me EP
Chess Club Records
What did you expect Sundara Karma’s next release to sound like? A return to the effervescent anthems of their beginnings? A development on the spacey dance bops of Ulfilas’ Alphabet? Something new entirely? Any of the above would be right… but any of the above would also be wrong. Sundara Karma’s latest EP Kill Me defies expectation, defies explanation, inspires experimentation – all while being a marvel to listen to.
Singles Kill Me and Artifice actually do give a pretty good preparation for the scope of the EP’s sound, but there’s no way they can gear you up for exactly how woozy listening to it will make you feel. Kill Me may be the EP’s sharpest moment, laden with hooks and choruses well worthy of a Sunny K crowd, but like a head-rush, the melodies entrance you as much as they make you want to dance. O Stranger’s almost rap-like verses cut through the mist, riding on sharp, flickering synth, and the EP’s closer Lifelines’ liquid, rippling melody is crystal clear.
Every facet of Kill Me is blindingly polished. All five of the tracks are verging on five minutes long, but every moment feels totally essential in the glimmering soundscape of the EP. Be it the crackle of a phone call on Lifelines, or the soaring sweep of synths, or the twinkling hypnosis that shimmers just below the surface the whole EP through, Sundara Karma have created a total sonic wonderland. Much of the EP would feel at home on the soundtrack to some uncanny fantasy: it’s beautifully expansive, and piercing in its subtlety.
It’s unclear exactly where in Sundara Karma’s discography Kill Me is going to fit – it feels remarkably discrete. What it signals for where Sunny K are heading is also hazy. With Kill Me, they’ve plunged into the ether, a world of synth nymphs and glassy pools, but what’s most breath-taking is the way they’ve pulled off bringing that dreamscape back to us. Kill Me is ambitious, expansive, and spectacular; lose yourself in it, and see if Sundara Karma ever choose to bring us back.
Kill Me is out now.
