Someone New
KANEHOLLER
By Natalie Silver
I used to proudly claim that I hated the sound of the female voice.
I blame a rancid combo of Freud, Donna Jean Godchaux and my second grade music teacher who not only made us sing bangers such as “Country Roads” and “God Bless America,” but also demoed every song in a voice that can politely be described as “quite shrill” and accurately be described as excruciating.
But then, you know, I grew up, got my fucking period, read some Judith Butler, graduated from UC Berkeley, lived in a co-op and eventually heard Chelsea Tyler’s voice. And I evolved.
I started in rock.
My grumpy old man ears were shattered into submission first by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, who is magically capable of making every light song dark and lifting every dark song up into the stratosphere.
I then fell in love with Pat Benatar’s range and dynamism, which dared every other musician in a male-dominated industry to match her. Her high note on “Heartbreaker” still stands as a timeless slap in the face to anyone else who may have tried.
In college I covered a Lauryn Hill and Nas show. She lobotomized me with the anger and amazement that she can somehow deliver in one blow. Both her tone and her lyrics possess eloquence, richness and motive, and her presence on stage is simultaneously dignified and vulnerable.
That same year, I interviewed Ann Wilson of Heart about experiencing both womanhood and success amidst a violently androcentric industry. I talked to her in the weeks following the Trump election, and we discussed in desperation how the empowerment of women and art and the intersection of the two are absolutely critical to surviving this era.
That said, I still hadn’t found a female voice of my generation that I found hopeful…or promising…or even interesting.
But I think that’s because I was still looking in rock. I have always written off electronic music because I believed it wasn’t “real,” or pleasurable unaccompanied by drug use. It felt like cheating—the sonic version of photoshop and airbrush…steroids…fabricated resumes…Kylie Jenner’s lips. I’m a grumpy old man, remember?
But then I found KANEHOLLER—or at the time, what was BadBadMusic, and my icy heart melted a tiny bit, which was especially shocking given its classification as “electronic soul.”
I was immediately and brilliantly hooked; before the bass even “dropped” and the vocal distortion was “introduced,” I was lured in with the haunting piano opener and the deep, beautifully raspy and yet scarily pure voice of Tyler.
Her range sounds effortless and her natural tone is incredibly soulful—the sound of her vocals is so hypnotic that the lyrics are irrelevant.
Often, I find beautiful voices boring, but like the women I mentioned earlier, this voice challenged me. It dared me to pay attention to it, and it teased me into listening more and more and more until my psyche was actually craving the bass to drop. I cannot believe I just said that.
“Someone New” is definitely electronic. It is dancey enough for parties, but also evokes a desire to experience the music alone and intimately.
I like rock music. I like ‘90s hip hop. I like that music because it is raw and honest and musically transcendent. And I never thought I would be able to find that relationship with electronic music, but KANEHOLLER pushed me out of my comfort zone by giving ancient beauty a youthful backbone. This two-piece group somehow manages to evoke in me the same state of awe that a Hendrix solo or an Ice Cube rhyme naturally already accomplishes.
“Someone New” is brutal. It hits you in your most tender spot. And for me—it’s different. And that’s really all you can ask of music, anyway, isn’t it?
December 24, 2018