Katie Dey • asdfasdf
OCT052 | Released June 11, 2015
Cassette tapes currently sold out / Download
asdfasdf's most defined and energetic song comes in the form of "unkillable", a minute and 20 seconds of buoyant melodies that constantly threaten to veer off course. Dey's lyrics shine through clearest here, with phrases like "teen poetry" and "sucks the blood from my feet" flashing through in strange, disembodied glimpses. The song is catchy, which makes it all the stranger. Most hooks go down smooth by design, but Dey's nightmare pop forces you to swallow something decomposing and sharp. The name of the song suggests its own inversion—not "unlikable", as it may read on first glance, but immortal, unstoppable, powerful.
Dey is hardly the first songwriter to use broken rules as weapons, but she takes palpable pleasure in the conventions she upends. Voices, especially women's, are expected to be pretty and easy to grasp, especially in quieter, gentler music. Dey amplifies her rough edges, splitting the space inside her tape machine and chasing herself down its fragments. asdfasdf sustains a level of textural complexity that most musicians won't attempt, and its clever melodic core supports the layers of abrasions. A warm playfulness radiates from deep inside Dey's music. Its inscrutability makes it all the more rewarding to wade through over and over again.
- Sasha Geffen, Pitchfork