NEW ALBUMS
MATTHEW E WHITE
K Bay DOMINO
8/10
Indie auteur amplifies sonic signature on audacious third album
Named after White’s home studio, K Bay probes the Richmond, VA-based artist’s teeming psyche while advancing his anything-goes record-making style. The rollicking opening salvo, “Genuine Hesitation” opens into an ecstatic image – “music’s playin’, Judy’s swayin’”. It’s the first of numerous references to his wife and muse, including the blissfully kinetic “Nested”, the carnal invitation “Let’s Ball” –a spot-on ’70s-funk homage on which bass player Cameron Ralston, the armed warhead of White’s killer band, shape-shifts into Bootsy Collins – and the old-school stomper “Judy”. But White veers into Randy Newman Good Old Boys territory on the honest topical lament “Only In America”, as he exposes both extremes of his bifurcated worldview.