In his maiden record via Lilystars in Manila, Ally Kerr shows how he’s a quiet parenthetical in an exclamation-mark world.
Ally Kerr isn’t so much a songwriter but a builder of sanctuaries in sound.
On the strength of the three or four advance singles culled from True Nature (out today), you just know he’s not too precious about the nerdy aspects of the craft; in his heart of hearts, I imagine he’d rather trade in quiet epiphanies and melodic mindfulness. There’s a sense, and not in any controlled fashion, of measured fragility, with his songs feeling simultaneously weightless but also with a palpable gravity. Kerr is obviously That Guy: a quiet parenthetical in an exclamation-mark world.
In his songs (say, the affecting “When You Let It Fall Away”), you can make a case for the lulls between utterances being the universe, for the pregnant pause being poetry in itself. His tunes – “quietly confident” but with “wisps of cinematic wistfulness,” as Uncut beautifully puts it – are pocket celebrations of life and love and the languishing longings in between.
I’ve spoken at length about his songs being exercises in expression rather than arresting stabs at artfulness, and relistening to key tracks only reinforces that. In tracks like “Back Again” and “Lucky Streak” – in their soothing fingerstyle picking, sparse support instrumentation, and lullaby-imbued vocal performances – Kerr’s almost defiant clarity shines.
I’m also reminded of his description of the creation of “When You Let It Fall Away,” which essentially captures the modern singer-songwriter’s dilemma, with songs viewed as a way of addressing “a need to find [a] blissful space” that is far removed “from the endless chatter of the mind.”
“[It’s] an album about transformation – turning melancholy into light, finding beauty within adversity, and seeing oneself as part of a larger picture,” Kerr shares in an advance pre-release memo. And the way these songs sound, are shaped, and slither through the cracks that exist between sorrow and jubilation, you just know it’s beyond cerebral calisthenics.
As paeans to “awareness, consciousness, and personal growth,” in its efforts to “shed mental baggage and [embrace] a more authentic, unconditioned self,” ‘True Nature’ is a celebration of existence itself, warts and all. I was afraid it was going to be all rosy, but the rest of the unreleased material – “When All I Had Was You,” “Only in This Moment” – all had a filmic melancholy that just ropes you in.
All this beautiful music – both a return to form and a step forward – is a real balm, a shelter from the algorithmic blare of everyday life. It’s lowercase music in an all-caps world. Listen to it today and share it with the people you love.