Stefanie Mannaerts: the beating heart of Brutus
Karin Park embarks on a new sonic path
SHE MIGHT BE amember of Norwegian noise-rockers Årabrot and the white boiler suit she’s sporting onstage is slightly reminiscent of Slipknot circa 2000, but KARIN PARK’s solo material has nothing to do with metal. The Swedish electroclash artist sounds far more like an intriguing meld of Everything But The Girl’s warm-sounding sophisti-pop, Björk’s stuttering, broken, Vespertine-era glitchy trip hop, and the throbbing, thoughtful electro of Self Esteem. Slayer she’s not, but she proves just why mixed bills can be such a wonderful way to expose yourself to music you may be unfamiliar with, by being fantastically transfixing throughout. Treating her half-hour onstage more like a flowing DJ set of endlessly morphing sounds, rather than a bunch of singular songs, she sets the bar way up high.