Canadian singer-songwriter Konner Whitney aka Whitney K is keeping that hardcore troubadour tradition alive and still kicking up the rubble. After releasing three mighty slices of his raw, country rock poeticism for Bologna’s Maple Death Records (the indispensable ‘Two Years’, the hypnotic ‘Hard To Be A God’ and the raucous ‘Viva!’) he’s now jumped into the Fire roster to stoke up his new album ‘Bubble’. Recorded at band mates Josh Boguski and Michael Halls home studio, ‘Bubble’ finds Whitney more reflective and life-worn but as always a rugged honesty underpins the album’s relaxed sonics. Yes those hooks are as sharp, barbed and catchy as ever.
Opener Heaven, a crisp confessional slice of garage pop, nails that claim from the get-go. Starting out on a gentle Bill Callahan shuffle laced with touching lo-fi soul-string phrases, Whitney’s knowing drawl reassures a falling friend (or maybe himself) that times usually turn around. His words, as always, feel poetically real with an everyday depth rooted in bar-stool philosophy. “I see you righteous brother in the muck/ running the lonely mile” and “If I had a dollar for every time I blew it, I’d park the Bentley on the lawn” are just a couple of the lyrical nuggets here and this is just the album’s first song. Throw in a hook sparkling with wah-wah fills, warming keys plus synth sprinkle and ‘Bubble’ immediately becomes somewhere to spend some time.
The waltzing country blues of Jolene is another tune which rolls and twangs irresistibly, a cracked love song where Justin Townes Earle’s heart meets Mark Everett (Mr Eels) dry, observational wit. Whitney has teased that the song charts the “experience going back out into the dating world post covid” or perhaps imagines a “sequel or maybe an epilogue to Dolly Parton’s Jolene”. Whatever, loneliness and emptiness seep touchingly out of the song as Ben Vallee’s pedal-steel yearns.
Such emotional connection is a real strength of ‘Bubble’ and this time around there’s seems to be less anger and angst powering the songs, which somehow makes them more relatable. On the gorgeous folky sway and ticking skip of Morning After, the bust-up story recognises both sides of letting go and that the dream of “a second floor and a double bed” is fading for two people. Canadian singer-songwriter Helena Deland adds her vocal alongside Whitney for that extra tug and together they shape a perfect chorus to match a simple sadness.
Another striking thing about ‘Bubble’ as an album is that it thrives on a new found economy in the Whitney K sound. In interviews around the release he’s talked about the motivation of keeping the songs tight, around the three-minute max, and thrumming with an old-school pop devotion. Having such a focus seems to have allowed the Whitney K soundscape to expand. The dreamy Freud Estate blends a chiming guitar vamp with a DIY Farfisa sound and arrives somewhere in The Vaselines/Sarah Records shambling pop territory. Here Talia Boguski’s clean, unruffled backing vocal paired with Whitney’s low rumble brings an added delicacy to the psycho-drama. Then there’s the fizzing, 45 rpm informed, So Strange where early nineties Brit indie (lo-fi samples, chirpy strums and breezy synth) frames a love song that can win smiles. Perhaps it’s the locomotive throb of Rosy that sees indie-pop, Whitney K-style reach its current peak. An uptempo Velvet’s chug that propels a surreal storyline of NDAs, an orgy, Anderson Paak and Turin is something probably only this band could make sound credible.
The new album also sees Whitney K music become a more coherent, collective effort. As in the past multi-instrumentalists Josh Boguski, Michael Halls and Avalon Tassonyi form the core band with Konner but this time they are co-writers, reflecting a studio process where they developed the music as a unit. It’s interesting then that the songs on ‘Bubble’ have arrived so sharp, succinct and free from instrumental extravagance. Naturally there are moments where Whitney K (the band) add their weighty dynamic to elevate the songs as on the Eco-conscious mantra The Ocean. What begins as a pensive ballad, guitars picked and lead slide melodious, builds in waves of rising heft with some blistering Big Star guitar swagger. That same effect hammers in again on the desperate TV Dreaming, a slowcore recovery song with quirky Lennon lifts (opening line “I was dreaming of the past /Saw my life slipping fast”), Boguski’s craning guitar reverb, power chords and a final buzzing amp.
There’s no doubt though that Konner Whitney moulds the narrative on ‘Bubble’ injecting this album with a stoic truthfulness that shouldn’t be ignored. Take the lone-sung ballad Beetlejuice, just his picking and voice in a fragile higher register, or the Evan Dando-esque rugged sweetness of Sunshine 2, which closes in on a ‘Waiting For My Man’ vibe but with a survival instinct. However for all the down-trodden weariness in some of Whitney’s stories he can still deliver on small hopes. He might be “tired of singing songs for people who walk right through the door and you and you and you”, as he admits on We’ll See, but he always leaves you with a sense of getting through. Maybe that’s why ‘Bubble’ finishes with the relaxed country funk of Lately, where he’s been walking the dog, cutting trees, drinking coffee and generally “doing all right”.
On the back of this knowingly understated, deceptively persuasive new album, the signs are strong that for Whitney K that feeling should linger on for a good while.
Get your copy of ‘Bubble‘ by Whitney K from your local record store or direst from Fire Records HERE
