Kissey Asplund, Plethora
Featured Album
A sister-from-another-planet soul singer drops a debut full of laid-back grooves and good vibes
Kissey Asplund is an undemonstrative singer, with an approach to melody that owes more to jazz than soul. She could be Kelis 'baby sister in both vocal style and looks, though her debut, Plethora is less welcome-to-Mars and more good vibes and laid-back grooves. That's not to say that her music is in any way on-kilter. Half-singing/half-sonar beeping, Asplund seems to weave through her tunes, dipping only briefly into a song's center before sliding back out to the margins.
Produced by French hip-hop collective Papa Jazz Crew, Plethora's tracks anchor Asplund's sister-from-another-planet riffs. Acoustic piano and trumpet samples fade into drum & bass beats, as if filtered through a dirty fiber-optic channel somewhere beneath Paris. "You&I" starts out all Erykah Badu cool, as Asplund flutters along to a wheezy vintage synth, and ends with her in a multiple-personality sing-along. "Fuss'n'fight" is a bass-heavy plea to a lover to leave her — and the rest of the world — in peace. "Can't you see how my eyes fill with pain?" Asplund asks, as a Hammond keeps things smooth in the background. "Cool it. No need to pick a fight." The line inadvertently highlights Plethora's main lack: mood and tempo switch-ups. Groovy is great, but on Asplund's next release it would be gratifying for her and the Papa Jazzies to kick the beats around — and harder. After all, who wouldn't want to hear about Kissey's milkshake? Or the wacked-out, Swede-soul equivalent.
