It started off like an ambient piece, until a faint beat came in after a minute. The pulsating rhythm became more prominent, and seconds before the two minutes-mark, a familiar weathered voice came in; "The square is emptying/The square is empty and silent/On a Monday night/You feel the rhythm of the routines/The week goes on and on and on and on and on..."
The track, titled "Empty and Silent", is the latest from longtime collaborators Mount Kimbie and King Krule, set to appear in the former's upcoming album. If it feels like the lyrics are taken off of a diary entry, it's because it probably is. There's a sense of idyllic mundanity from the song, yet some points feel like poetic moments within an otherwise ordinary life.
Before "Empty and Silent", Mount Kimbie and King Krule have worked together on "You Took Your Time" and "Meter, Pale, Tone" from Cold Spring Fault Less Youth, "Blue Train Lines" from Love What Survives, and the single "Turtle Neck Man."
Mount Kimbie's new album, The Sunset Violent, is set to release on April 5. The album marks new band members Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell's first full-length release with the project-turned-band, along with core members Dominic Maker and Kai Campos. The album will also feature another collaboration with King Krule, "Boxing".
"This song started out in the desert and helped us figure out the sound of the album but it really came to life back in London," said Mount Kimbie of the collaboration. "We set up to record the track in the studio and most of what you hear is us figuring out the song as we go." An apt description, since the track seems like a rumination of life—figuring things out as you live them.
There's a sense of something being not quite right, like a life that still needs to be worked on—but aren't all lives like that? You still need to fix your diet, and do something about your disheveled look. And what is it that you're missing? No matter. These serene, solitary moments, has their own beauty after all.
"Empty and Silent" is available to stream now.
(alm/alm)