kHz

The EP (Propain)
by Lex Marburger

On this album, you will hear the sounds of sleepless nights, horror movie soundtracks, NIN’s “A Warm Place,” Industrial dub, Portishead… Portishead? It’s true, somehow kHz has managed to meld trip hop and moody, industrial electro in places. Singer Raiana doesn’t so much croon the words as have them torn from her, agonizing, “Make it go away.” Programmer and sampler Pull is definitely onto something, mixing rather long samples (one’s a man talking about music vs. Big Business, another’s of a raver going on about trance dancing) with creepy electronic sounds, rounding it all off with some live bass, courtesy of Denny (I guess he couldn’t come up with a cool nickname). The album is pretty slow and deep for the first four tracks, but during “Anxiety Attack” the energy and volume shoot upward, forcing the feedback and turntables to fit together with some earth-heavy drums and samples of a woman speaking French. Then it settles back down for a while, recessing into the dark corners of ambient, like some of Download’s slower material. The soundtrack quality of their music comes out in “When There is Nothing,” a minimal piece, not much layering, a single keyboard line against Raiana’s voice, some faint grinding and thumping serving for rhythm. kHz picks it back up for “Trance,” throwing more “Industrial” in, which means it’s a little more accessible than before, but that doesn’t last long when it segues into the heartbeat drum patterns of “Feel Me” with the first full effect of Raiana’s voice, rising and falling like a breath, as the keys in the background move to an almost AAA sound, without quite getting there. It ends gently, setting us back down where we started, but most certainly changed, although uncertain if for better or worse.
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