Ken Park is not Korean, nor is Ken Park a Scottish playing field. Ken Park is the pseudonym of Californian Brooklyn-based Liam Creamer. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, when you Google Ken Park, the first results will not be about a 2002 film about four dysfunctional teenagers in California. They will be about the boy in the Big Apple.
Park/Creamer has said that he grew up listening to My Bloody Valentine and The Smashing Pumpkins, and boy does it show. In the mid-2020s, shoegaze has been mined more than the Democratic Republic of Congo. It seems that even jazz musicians are investing in Big Muff pedals and declaring themselves the new Ride. But then came Ken Park, and he made shoegaze sound fresh again.
On ‘Maybe Delete’, guitars are wielded like axes in a Viking rampage. The track borders on Mezzanine-era Massive Attack and it could soundtrack a jeans advert or the convergence of superheroes in a burning Times Square. ‘Shatter’ is the sound of skateboarding to high school in 1996, when Microsoft Encarta was a homework saviour and the internet was still a silly conspiracy. Rumour has it that Billy Corgan is scratching his bald head in a basement wondering how he did not write this (you heard it here first because I started it).
If there was any more feedback on ‘Dragonfly’, it would sound like a city centre planning consultation. The squalling is akin to squabbling pterodactyls, though Park sounds as chill as James Iha amidst a green haze. New single ‘Crawl’ is a Bon Iver-like loop with reverbed howling and distraught violin. ‘Nosebleed’ started as a “little poem” and is about a literal nosebleed. However, the opening lyrics dip into mediaeval humorism: “Nosebleed, it cleanses me / Of the rot in my blood.” Sounds rather optimistic, as does the entire track, which is an exemplary example of crashing 90s radio-friendly guitar pop.
‘Sleep Paralysis’ brings the EP to a peaceful close. It was written when Ken Park was 17. Such a fact is awe-inspiring and depressing if, like me, you were a 17-year-old who was proud just to return a Blockbuster video on time. Anyway, ‘Sleep Paralysis’ is like Sufjan Stevens doing his absolutely best impression of George Harrison, with some descending Nick Drake-like fingerpicking and an extra hint of Simon & Garfunkel. Yes, it really is that good.
Park explains that “sleep paralysis is a state where the mind wakes before the body…and this song became my way of giving voice to that feeling of being stuck: wanting something intensely while knowing it remains frustratingly, persistently just out of reach.” If global fame is his aim, and if justice is real, he won’t have to reach for much longer.
Ken Park is out now via TODO
Review by Neil Laurenson
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