where i make difficult to follow comparisons between things
So after seeing them live, Zoë Keating is the Paul Cézanne of classical cello, and Kaki King the Henri Rousseau of classical guitar.
Not perfect analogies, but the idea is there. Zoë understands classical music theory and that methodology, but rejects it in a conscious pursuit of what became called primitivism in painting (though i prefer Gauguin’s term ‘synthetism’). Her music is intentionally segmented, allowing for a greater tonal and stylistic contrast between the fragments, and these contrasts allow for the audio analogue to brighter colors than usually occurs in more traditional approaches. But it’s not a violent rejection, the classical is there in the background, but only as a launching board.
Kaki King on the other hand is to some degrees the outsider. She comes across as someone who is simply playing with toys, but who’s technical ability makes that playing a spectacle. She isn’t worried about showing the edges of her ability, and by exposing them they become a part of the performance, adding a more direct connection to the audience. Where Zoë is memorized, Kaki is always in part, if not wholly, improvised. It would be a disservice to call her music fauvist as it now implies almost an inability, but she isn’t afraid to step into harsher edges of tone and music when the performance takes her there.
Or at least that’s how a slight synaesthetic with slight apophenia sees it.
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must be a serious post, i used some capital letters.
Albertine is discussing. 
Albertine 12:59 am on March 10, 2011 Permalink
Thank you for introducing me to Kaki King; I love her.