If the term "freak-folk" wasn't yet on your radar, it will be soon.
Ken Park, the solo project of NYC-based Liam Creamer, is a labor of both love and time. Built over the course of years, his debut self-titled EP Ken Park bleeds with the emotion of a shedding adolescence—though, if comparable at all, it is certainly more subtle than the film Ken Park (2002).
The vulnerability of Ken Park relies heavily on a collage of acoustic instrumentation swimming beneath a humid layer of reverb. There's an abundant perspective on production that draws everything together; a melancholy that can hardly be described by a list of effect categories and instruments.
The viewpoint as a project is clear, but the singles stand alone; (staunchly) so in a way that narrates the progression of Creamer's life and music influences starting at age 17 and transitioning into the current day, though not at all in order. Each single peels away a layer of paint, revealing the drywall of his current state, vulnerable as a teenager, hardened as a young adult, thrust into ill reality. Or maybe it's the other way around.
The EP kicks off with the crunchy reverberating layers of "Maybe Delete," starting thin and quickly swelling into a wall of noise, welcoming you to the gritty labyrinth of Ken Park. There are a few lyrics and a whole lot of manipulation that turn this song into a hard-hitting opener for a project filled with twists and turns in both style and motivation.
Cohesion is maintained, nonetheless, with a transition so perfect into the next song that it takes a few seconds to orient to the fact that it is, in fact, a different song. Once footing is found, "Shatter" reveals itself as the choke-hold between an indie time-capsule and a pop ballad that's been crumpled up like old newspaper and thrown down the garbage chute. It's a side of Ken Park entirely different from our first introduction, with more clear, purposeful instrumentation, and vocal melodies made to be remembered and remembered and remembered until you have to force yourself to forget.
"Dragonfly" is arguably where Ken Park's individual appeal as an artist completely emerges. Screeching synths fill the space between raw, lilting vocals until the song disintegrates into the echoes that weave this project so tightly together. It's everything strange and piercing that a listener could love from "Maybe Delete," and everything melodic that has dripped down from the remains of "Shatter." Without hesitation, "Dragonfly" is a highlight of Ken Park.
From the first few seconds, "Crawl" carries the folk in freak-folk to its full potential with a heavily strummed guitar and visceral lyrics that wail over blunt instrumentation. Creamer's profoundly convoluted lyricism is front and center on this track, with short, rich verses that portray sharp imagery of running away into the wilderness and leaving everything behind until it trails off into the echoes of "isn't it beautiful, afraid, isn't it beautiful?"
"Nosebleed" is more heavily produced than the previous two songs, providing a higher energy indie-rock anthem as the penultimate installment to the EP. It comes in at the perfect time to recover the listener from the cave of darkness that Ken Park has spiraled into—as long as you don't listen too intently to the words that he is so unassuming with.
Ending with another stand-out track, "Sleep Paralysis" is a cage that traps listeners between melodic guitar that runs you in circles and airy, high-pitched harmonies. Towing the line between upbeat and haunting, the song is a true novelty within the EP. It captures an energy from the entire project into a single three-minute song, while taking no obvious sonic cues from any of the previous tracks. That could be because it was recorded before everything else, on an iPhone when Creamer was just 17, but including it in the EP after all these years was a choice; so its unique sound feels more purposeful than that.
Some debut projects lay a sort of breadcrumb trail for the future of an artist, and while I'm sure that Ken Park could release a thousand more songs and become a thousand times more successful, I get the feeling that this EP isn't necessarily setting the stage for something bigger, at least purposefully. It doesn't need to.
Ken Park sounds more like a passion than a career, and in that way, it will reach the right people over the course of time. Like how Autoclave's Autoclave continues to find new love affairs, generation after generation. Or The Microphones The Glow, Pt. 2. Not that the EP sounds or feels like either of those projects, but it feels like its own special thing in a similar way; timeless.
Though listening to Ken Park might make you feel like you exist in a void, Ken Park does not. He will play The New Colossus Festival in New York City, and fans should be on the lookout for more to come. With an exceptional amount of anticipation for the new band, Ken Park is a name that you might be seeing more of this next year, if you're lucky. And if not; even if it takes five years for another release after this one—I'll be waiting.
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Photo credit: Leila Simpson
