Sink Lower

King Krule “Biscuit Town”

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to adequately describe Archy Marshall’s voice and it’s quite difficult. There’s so much raw humanity in the tone of it, his phrasing, the cadence, and way it shifts and splashes on the microphone. He’s clearly put a lot of thought into how he uses his voice but the performances always sound entirely instinctive, as if he’s just making up the tune and words on the spot. But at the core of all of this is two things – deep loneliness and the vulnerability of a broken young man. He always sounds desperate for connection, and like he’s trying to cut through the bullshit of social niceties to get to something more real.

It’s no coincidence that he obsesses on urban space in his songs. Big dense cities are the best place to be if you feel a powerful need to be around other people but also want to be entirely alone. “Biscuit Town” opens The Ooz with a dreary rainy weekday night atmosphere. The mood is so precise that I can’t hear the resonance of the chords in the mix without picturing puddles on concrete lit by neon bar lights. “I seem to sink lower,” he sings at the start, and by the end of the record he sounds like he’s sunk entirely. But the album ends on such a delicate and graceful note that maybe the point is that sinking isn’t actually such a bad thing.

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