- Kat Hunter’s prog-pop project Lack The Low returns with her second EP after 2018’s stacked One Eye Closed. Again it finds an utterly appropriate home on the label for serious-musicians-with-serious-music-to-get-out-there, Art As Catharsis. The new record seems both sweeter, leaning into its pop sensibilities, yet, perhaps even more densely compressed, every song stuffed with so much complex orchestration. Lack The Low has a roiling energy that’s always adding more, like she’s on some breathless pursuit of artistic perfection. This record feels like it’s lifting a tremendous weight, a truly concerted effort, really earning its title, God-Carrier.
Extraordinary ambition appears to be just Hunter's everyday workload. Multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, videographer …dancer, too? She is also, unsurprisingly, really well versed in the work of her avant-garde pop contemporaries, just check out the Spotify playlist of God Carrier References, forty jams she was vibing while putting the new record together; kudos for including Khabarovsk Krai, my favourite ever Olga Bell song.
Hunter has said her first EP brought an intense and philosophical focus to “the dark side of humanity and personal growth.” These are very much the themes of God-Carrier too. Actually, sometimes I think Lack The Low’s headspace is a little less terrifying here, but opener Rushlight isn’t a good example. Entwined issues of interpersonal toxicity, gaslighting and the torture of artistic integrity writhe through its slowly escalating structure. I had it on in the background and was lulled by the initial, swirling lightness. The multi-tracking becomes thicker and thicker, burdened with an almost hysterical energy. It plateaus but only to grow again at a breakneck pace with an ambient background like the shrieking wind.
Another recent single, The Sharpest Knife, while still blaring its intensity, is comparatively forgiving in its offer of romantic and, indeed, universal acceptance: “The fates may sew me into place / And like a child / I’ll hold each thread / And not see where my fingers end / Or where the universe begins / Away / Watch it dissolve away / Cast your demons away.”
Take It Lightly is even more welcoming, almost Hallmark card level as Hunter proclaims “Breathe in the fresh air / Go walk in the park / And knit a jumper / And greet your neighbours”. Having said that, it may be my favourite track on the record, as the synthwave arpeggiation spins with a gentle force against her voice, multi-tracked into harmonies that are achingly beautiful.
Saturn builds from a vocal lilt into textures that are ever thicker, possibly the densest here, though for all the intensity Hunter is still pushing self-help mantras: “You have permission to waste the day / You have permission to lie down in the sun / You are allowed to not have a plan / You are allowed to sleep when the day is done”, which, given what I know about her, is probably very sage advice.
In fact the idea of coming to terms with just who Kat Hunter is to and for herself is just about the whole business of God-Carrier. Windows for instance, addresses the terror of the overachiever, realising that you can’t have it all and shutting windows of opportunity: “You once were a deep well of spirit, with a future to create / Now your deepest truth is a secret that will never be told / Secrets untold are forgotten, and in time, evaporate.” There’s an icy magnificence to the composition as Hunter beholds just what she is and is not, now frozen in permanence.
Speaking of which, the surprising singer-songwriter warmth of closer Brigid is in fact another wintry affair: an allegory of cold fear, locking us in place, unable to enjoy life’s pleasures because we won’t let ourselves. The musical sweetness is, really, a false promise, a reality not yet achieved in the soul.
Is that where this god resides? Carried inside, the hidden ruler of an internal universe, the divine self; even as Hunter feels utterly bound by external forces, almost powerless to change. The endless drive of this record appears to be borne out of a roiling inner conflict. Lack The Low is trying to tap her own preternatual power, spilling out of the center of a raging yin and yang. It’s ironic that so much is produced by what is really a search for peace, but forth it comes flooding, with ever greater weight and intensity as Kat Hunter tries to come to terms with the immensity of being a God-Carrier.
- Chris Cobcroft.