THE KITE STRING TANGLE

“The Kite String Tangle”

(Album Review)

.

Danny Harely, or better known as The Kite String Tangle, has, after years of anticipation, finished his self-titled, debut album. The Brisbane singer and producer has delivered an album that’s more upbeat than his debut EP, and pulls from various genres and periods to create a unique alt. electronic record that’s been 3 years in the making.
.

THE KITE STRING TANGLE

.

While still keeping to mellow, more solemnly toned beats, Harely goes into a lot more dance style and upbeat type production with a lot of the tracks here. The most dance style track would be This Thing We Got, it’s groovey, sticky drum beat sets a great rhythm, but the extremely lavish horns that are presented throughout the track, especially on the hook, top it all off. Then there’s songs like Beneath the Canopy, with an almost EDM like hook, that has some great Tropical like synths and percussion, as well as having top notch underlining vocal samples. And the single Selfish, which has these sirens building the song up, adding a very eery mood to the song, and the great, bright and textured synths on the hook with the trap-like hi-hats, possibly makes it one of the album’s best songs. Though TKST’s slower beats are still up to scratch, the track Know By Now, starts out as a slow, distorted synth ballad, accompanied by Harley’s own harmony playing underneath. It builds further with a metronome beat until by the end we get a lovely use of symbols and deep horns. The song Mistakes to Make sticks to a simply piano and fast drum beat for the first half and culminates with some legato style synths that bring on a 2000’s vibe. The production side the album is incredibly well balanced and sticks to Kite Strings sound he gave us on his first EP but dialled up and improved upon.

Harley’s singing is key to his sound, and for the most part there’s nothing to really criticise. His high pitched vocals do a great job at suiting all the tracks here, from the dance songs to the slower ones and everything in between, highlighting his ability to adapt to varied genre music he’s making. On the song Fickle Gods, Harley shows off his range from high to low, a really building his voice up as the hook approaches. Or on the track Wanderlust, Harely sounds awesome as his voiced is fully immersed in an electronic tone, having great delivery too. There’s also great chemistry with both the features on the album, Bridgette Amofah of Rudimental features on The Prize, being an awesome team up as the two both compliment each other but also have their own moments in the spotlight. And the track All I Need features Gold Coast singer/songwriter Montgomery, whose beautiful, whispery vocals fit so snuggly into the track, feeling like the perfect counterpart for Harley. Though some line delivery I found to be a little awkward for Harley, like on Hold On Me with the line “like what the fuck… are you thinking” and as well on a couple of lines in the verse of The Devil You Know.

.

THE KITE STRING TANGLE

.

The lyrics of the album are possibly, what I find, the biggest down fall, because more often then not we’re getting a song where Harley’s singing about a girl, whether positive or negative, it gets stale but what’s worse is that it can start to feel insincere. Songs like Selfish, The Prize and Beneath the Canopy the lyrics feel a bit sparse, which is fine because they’re more production driven tracks. But the song Fickle Gods is the one I have the most problems with. Seemingly about a girl who’s no longer in love with Harley and has found someone else. Though the way Harley’s lyrics play out are like he knows he’s the better man and this girl should be with him, when in Mistakes to Make the lyrics are “when it’s my time, I’ll step back with grace”, making it all come off very contradictory. The most sincere track I found was Thing We Got, where Harley’s just singing about a little fling he hopes could turn into something more.

A very solid release and debut record for the Kite String Tangle, and something I know will satisfy very eager fans. Improving and also experimenting while keeping within a lovely unique sound. The more upbeat sounds stood out for the better reasons on the record, though it’s still very well balanced that shows the strengths of Danny Harley and gives us all sorts of ideas of where he could go from here.

.

.

Connect with The Kite String Tangle!