Album Review: Katie Von Schleicher - 'Consummation'
Katie Von Schleicher’s third album, Consummation, is an electric dream machine of a record. Step into her nocturnal world.
“I can’t confine my rage, you remind me,” she sings on the opening track of her upcoming album. What does the subject in question remind her of? She doesn’t specify.
Von Schleicher's signature sound is expansive, with a lo-fi approach that gives a magical, mysterious air to her tracks. Consummation, however, breaks into new sonic ground. With a voice that confidently stretches in range, she invites us into an introspective album that she says is a “deeply personal exploration of trauma.”
“I wanna sit alone in the dark,” she sings on “Nowhere,” “I hate this empty room.” Instead, she fills the room with echoing harmonies and her own wispy vocals. She plays with dozens of synth sounds in a kaleidoscopic fashion -- turn the album one way and you get one sound, turn it the other way and you’ll get another one.
Much of Consummation revolves around the non-waking world.
“While the rest of the songs were being mixed, I had a vivid dream with a snake the color of lapis lazuli,” says Von Schleicher. “That became ‘Caged Sleep,’ an ode to a dream that ended a period of my life. Some people hate dream stories, so for those humans: I have included saxophones, synthesizers and claps to court your attention.”
Because while much of the album is whimsical and other-wordly -- like Alice falling down the synthetic rabbit hole -- it’s still rhythmic, purposeful, and followable, not merely a circus mix of noise.
And, yet, even if Von Schleicher has included sounds for those who aren’t partial to dream stories, “it’s my dream,” she sings. This is her story to tell.
On “The Strangest Thing”, Von Schleicher offers an interlude, featuring stunning, operatic vocals from herself, backed by jazz-like chords, and backup singers that sound like a choir of ghostly angels.
“First I do something awful wrong, then we make fools of ourselves,” she sings on “Brutality,” perhaps channeling a little of past sonically gutsy women like PJ Harvey, Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon, or Fiona Apple, “no one’s gonna take it away from me.”
Consummation’s closing track “Nothing Lasts” comes across as a double entendre: the record, of course, ends, but Von Schleicher’s dream is just beginning.
Words by Allison Rapp