Review Summary: Let's Turn It Into Words
I loved Ears, the smooth velvet of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's arrangements fit in perfectly with her voice and it created this real sense of ethereal pleasure that you don't want to let go of. It felt simultaneously like something old and familiar, but something new being made from its memory, like when you find a well-worn coat at the thrift shop. Like mushrooms growing from a fallen tree trunk. Sadly, this is not Ears.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has really committed to the atnoal vocal stabs on this release. They start out very appealing in the beginning but she puts her entire shoulder into this element over and over and over again to the point of beating it to death, 30 minutes in you're just bored of it. Compared to past works, Let's Turn It Into Sound is harder, harsher and heavier. Heavy synths and percussion come into this as if it's trying to move more mainstream but it's somehow even less accessible due to the vocal stabs.
Don't be mistaken, this is still a deeply groovy record that defies a lot of the criticism on its second track, Locate, which is deeply resonant, and those horns playing an octave from eachother are a real sonic delight. It also brings in industrial-style drums like you're listening to a Nine Inch Nails song, an appreciated touch.
Another criticism is tat this album also just doesn't give itself the space to make its entire moves, songs stop in the middle of the track and enter an entirely new movement. There is no worse offender than the fifth track Check Your Translation which has this horribly jarring flip to synths out of absolutely nowhere and it gives the first half of the song no time to wind down. It's as if KAS came into this with *too many* ideas, but was for whatever reason constrained to a time limit.
There are nonetheless a lot of really pretty moments on this album, the first half of Pivot Signal is so so so so well-balanced. And the way it fades out is just perfect, the transition into Unbraid: The Merge floods your senses with the sound of choirs and there's something sacred in this specific gesture. This is also the track that becomes very danceable at the end, which is a welcome evolution in KAS's music. (Almost to evoke Aphex Twin or Bjork, IDM is undeniably within here.) And the way she throws her voice around the headphones (you should listen to this on headphones) especially on tracks like Let It Fall gives this feeling of unreality, as if she's floating all around you, like a fog, or a dream.
It's very possible that Let's Turn It Into Sound is a time for changing and choosing, for KAS to move closer to the mainstream without losing what makes her so much fun to listen to. She has a fundamental musical appeal that is helped tremendously by her singing voice, just not when it goes all over the place. It's just not working on here like it should, but who knows how great the next album will be because of her experimentation here?
