A new underrated artist with a blend of ageless vintage tunes and beats has arrived by the name of Jeff Kaale. (Even if you do not read the whole article, just go listen ASAP!)
Kaale, who goes by “X I X X” on SoundCloud, released a 14:49 minute long album about a month ago called “Mornings With You EP.” I have searched high and low to find out the exact genre this music classifies under, but could not find an answer. Kaale’s music is best described as smooth 50s songs with a percussion background and modern twist.
From Kaale’s dreamy filtered album photo of a lady in a meadow, along with other album photos of Lana Del Rey and Marilyn Monroe in vintage habitats, it is clear that Kaale is approaching a vibe from another time. However, the way he manages to make this music relevant in 2016 is just my cup of tea.
The first song on the album, “Im pwetty,” sets a happy intro with a repeating squeaked, but warm voice followed by an entrance of drum beats to make the song more uplifting. The melody consist of a repeating back and forth of sounds with small jumps. Overall, it’s very pleasing to the ears and sets a fun environment for the listener.
For a second song,“Pillow Talk” (sorry Directioners, not the one by Zayn Malik)
delivers after “Im pwetty.” The listener gets a jazzy muffled saxophone that borders on elevator music but is quickly uplifted with drums and again an occasional squeaky but not annoying voice. I could totally imagine this song in the background of a car commercial for a drive around the San Francisco lights.
X I X X’s album ends with an unusual song compared to the others. It has a retro video game vibe to it but is still nice. You really have to wait for the end when two voices emerge and give the song a surreal and calming finish that brings you back to reality from the music voyage you just took.
Although I admit I’m not a world-renowned music aficionado in position to evaluate a song, I know good music when I hear it. Considering Kaale has “1998” written in his SoundCloud and Instagram biography, you could call this presumably 18-year-old an amateur, but his music has that “it” to it. It is quite something worth of lauding.
I especially love how this music’s low focus of words and chilled sound make it perfect to stay focused on homework without getting distracted by lyrics.
The only negative I can really see with X I X X is that many of his songs consist of samples, but even then, I have to give props to Kaale because it is hard to properly embed a song and create your own sound with it. Another thing is that Kaale was not the first artist to make this type of music, but either way, he is still my favorite so far.
Outside of this album, I would recommend the songs “Strawberry” and “Honey.” I would also recommend buying this album along with his other music, except, it is not available for purchase but rather provided for free on SoundCloud. (But hey, I’m not complaining.)
With only 35.2K followers on SoundCloud, it is safe to say that this artist is really underviewed. Even with YouTube vlogger CaseyNeistat (who has 2.3M subscribers and has vlogged with Justin Bieber) often using Kaale’s music and giving credit at the end of every video, Kaale’s most viewed song only has 177K views. The next wanna-be hipster really needs to jump on this ASAP before the band waggon train leaves the station.