- Arrom and KAIAR are two artists on the roster of experimental label Provenance and they have a lot in common: ethereal voices, dark beats, a seductive approach to their music-making, but one that doesn’t shy away from emotional issues and something more real than the tissue-paper-thin sentiments of pop.
It’s interesting to see how they come together on their debut collaboration, Truce. It could’ve been all a bit too same-samey, but it isn’t that. Of the pair, producer-vocalist KAIAR’s pop-r’n’b sensibility is the signature of this new sound. It’s hard to hear the dark beats, paired with Arrom’s whispery voice and not think of FKA Twigs. Yet this isn’t r’n’b, really. Arrom tags her approach as ‘choral’ and that’s a good way to think of what’s going on here. Perhaps its closest co-traveller is the recent, ambient-vocal work of Julianna Barwick. I think you could appreciate the work on Truce, whatever, but it’s nice that both artists really seem to leave their mark on it, equally.
The two minute intro, Doubt, seems like it’s teasing us with just how FKA Twigs this record can be: building a vocalise into a soaring, distinctly r’n’b inflected sound. They immediately jink away from that, however, with the epic, seven-minute single, Breathe. I don’t know quite what it sounds like -there are snatches of Björk, Purity Ring, Hemm or even singer-songwriters like Fiona Apple or Kate Bush. Lyricially it’s a model for the album: emotional trauma is processed through echoing bass beats, choppy samples and crystalline vocals. It begins with “Breathe, exhale your screams / There is no rhythm to your chest / Your wordless words / Your broken breath.” One partner offers solace to the other: “I have no need for sleep / I’ll lay beside you and / Help you breathe.” This is the covenant, the titular Truce that ties the record together.
Fallen Out Of Favour -as per the title- problematises those therapeutic qualities with ominous predictions of relationship ructions and is suitably dosed with atmosphere, dark beats and chimes. It’s especially the purring bass that would make this a very adequate Massive Attack vocal anthem. The title track brings slightly distorted synth harmonies that are pure Fever Ray. I don’t know if Arrom and KAIAR were trying to produce a flipbook of the moody beats world, but they’re doing a pretty good job of it. This number blends emotional exhaustion into a peacemaking epiphany: “You have to wake!” The vocals twist away from anything Karen Dreijer and into something multi-layered, more reminiscent again of FKA Twigs. It’s a gorgeous combination, with all that it needs to be a great single.
The record flips judderingly back and forth between emotional connections and the failure of those connections. Idle explores the problems of mismatched lovers through splintered samples, synths and jittery beats. Having spoken of the record's wild oscillations, it then does the opposite and ... stays the same: Starcrossed doubles down, a frisson of obsession as opposites unhealthily attract, played out over speedy snatches of bass beats and doused, as is most of the record, in plenty of reverb. Don't worry, we're back to wild swerves on penultimate number, I Know The Ocean -a tale of sisterhood and solidarity- according to Arrom. Thanks to the vocal treatment and halting delivery, it’s just about the most Twigsy thing on here, albeit Twigs at her most uncertain and restrained. Interestingly, the vocals peter out gradually, replaced with a layered rush of instrumentation that delivers a frisson of excitement. Final number, You Remain, is interesting in the way it tells its story of survival. “I will remain, unchanged / And you remain unchanged” - according to Arrom, again, it’s an expression of great pain: being battered by the world and standing up against it, even though that’s the hardest thing to do. What makes it especially curious is that it's the most upbeat song on the record: all tuneful harmonies and soaring trebles. This is the Truce, then, drowning out the pain; the scars of war and fruits of peace, mingled.
Truce is a love letter to the mess of emotions expressed in the last ten years and more of dark, melodic beats and to the way they speak to our own, troubled emotions; the way the music gets us through. It’s also a work that, even if the lyrics are mostly about troubled relationships and personal struggles, speaks strongly to the power and passion of collaboration, the dividends of a shared artistic endeavour that breaks through in every number. Arrom x KAIAR is more than a truce, more than a burden shared too. In facing trauma together it finds peace, progress and power in music.
- Chris Cobcroft.