Katy Kirby – Blue Raspberry
On Blue Raspberry, Katy Kirby is funny, scathing and full of clarity about her personal epiphanies
In the gorgeous uncertainty of new love, the line between authenticity and artifice is porous: truth, future, the real you, the real them, it all collapses in those moments as you submit to absorbing the happiness of those moments. For Katy Kirby, that was a first love for a woman, and she chose to scout the contours of that fresh experience on her second album Blue Raspberry.
The record begins at the end of something else, Kirby shooting withering takedowns ('I raise up a glass to your personal growth'). But something new is soon blossoming. Kirby focuses on the messiness, and excavates the positives on Cubic Zirconia. That image – of a fake diamond – repeats throughout, driving home the idea that striving for beauty and perfection in connection is as rewarding as attaining it.
Leaving behind the quiet/loud dynamics and scrappiness of her excellent debut Cool Dry Place, the orchestration here is far more ornate and patient, as on the slowcore dirge Alexandria, or the Laurel Canyon whisper of Salt Crystal. A hint of musical theatre elsewhere sees the record lose some of its bite, but in general it’s a robust rejoinder to some of the more depthless musicality of soul-baring, 'authentic', indie-rock. Kirby is instead funny, scathing and full of clarity about her personal epiphanies.
Listen to: Fences, Alexandria, Table