A Karl Blau Compendium · Wednesday February 22, 2006
Our good friend and ultra-talented Anacortes local Karl Blau recently released his newest LP Beneath Waves on K Records (it’s his first release on K). 
For the past several years, Karl’s been engaging music on a prolific scale: putting out a new album every month through his music subscription club Kelp Monthly, recording and touring constantly with Ms. Laura Veirs, contributing to recordings by The Gift Machine, Nate Ashley, Mt. Eerie, The Graves, International Falls, Yr Heart Breaks, and Woelv, among many others, and playing shows under his own name. I for one am glad that he decided to leave oyster farming to pursue music full time (should you be in the area, however, the Blay Oyster Company still has some of the yummiest oysters in the Puget Sound).
Karl is one of the most hard working, creative, and giving people I know. Beneath Waves is testament to this, and if the online buzz is any indicator, it appears that people are finally starting to take notice.
I’ve read so many positive reviews of Beneath Waves recently that I thought it would be useful to make a comprehensive list of reviews and mentions. I’ll be posting more as I find them or as they become available. Please email me if you come across any reviews that aren’t posted here.
Update: Azure sends along a couple of articles; a review from Exclaim and an excellent interview/feature by Performer Mag (a gem of an article: well-written, unpretentious, and honest). Scroll down for the goods.
Neumu
“Yet alongside this individuality, there’s a clarity, a structure, an attention to details here that is quite different from most homemade recordings.”
Tiny Mix Tapes
“Beneath Waves is the sort of nuanced, carefully wrought work that typically comes only after years of hashing it out with one’s muse. In this instance, middle-of-the-road is by no means middling.”
Splendid
“While not every song will appeal to every listener’s taste, Beneath Waves can be an extremely powerful listening experience. This strong, varied, uncompromising record will make a perfect soundtrack for your next bout of introspection.”
PopMatters
“Somewhere in the middle of “Ode to Demons”, you realize Blau’s voice is beautiful, all heartfelt outcry and smooth resonance; and you want to go right back to the beginning and hear his songs all over again. The music is packed so tight with meaning that each time you do, new wonders open up – yeah, kind of like the dark and magical sea.”
Sleephouse Radio
This one features a PODCAST and EMAIL INTERVIEW with Karl! Doubly exciting. I haven’t seen Sleephouse before, but it looks like an excellent podcast/music blog.
“Specifically, it’s talking of singing: “When it’s with nothing that you have so much to give / And it’s in nowhere that you’ve found your place to live” etc. “Vocalise into the nada,” I think of as singing out into nothing and the satisfaction is implied there. This song is a celebration. Being alive is the gift; singing is saying “I believe this is happening.”
Static and Distance
from the comments – “this is a sweet little song- the beginning has traces of the dominican republic. makes you want to get out of bed, huh? 1% with each bounce until you’re 100%.”
Popsheep
“This song teases you by making you think that it’s, at first, a motown rehearsal and, within a few seconds, a live reggae track. It doesn’t take long, though, before you realize that it’s the hidden track on Paul Simon’s “Graceland”. Where has this song been all this time, you’re probably asking? I know. I, personally, would have loved to sing this at the top of my lungs on a long car trip with my parents circa age 11.”
Big Yawn
“Karl Blau has found the perfect mixture of today’s eccentric pop and yesterday’s sensible pop aesthetics. Beneath Waves is able to take the most traveled waterways and make them nteresting and unpredictable once more. Dashes of organ, spoken word, breezy guitars and unfamiliar sounds decorate what would otherwise be the pop most of us grew up loving and hating. The first signs of the spring thaw have arrived in the cold of the winter thanks to Blau and his hope-springs-eternal Beneath Waves.”
The Stranger
“On Tuesday, January 24, Karl issued his latest opus, Beneath Waves. Like many of his records, it utilizes a vast palette of sonic colors: melancholy folk rock, ensemble vocals by the Noceans (Veirs, Nate Ashley, and Dave Matthies), passages of dissonant horns and brass. Fans of Sufjan Stevens’s flights of orchestral fancy should be particularly enticed by the majestic Beneath Waves selection ‘My Johnny.’”
The Olympian
“This must be what it’s like to float half-drunk off some Caribbean isle, with nothing scheduled but more of the same. Blau combines charmingly pedestrian vocals, horn blurts, simple percussion and guitar lines and something that sounds like whale calls into a smiley little bit of kicking back.”
San Francisco Bay Guardian
“Karl Blau’s new album, Beneath Waves, begins with the lyric “A long time coming, this return,” and, indeed, this is a recording we’ve been waiting for from Olympia’s K Records for some time. If the playing-with-friends K aesthetic has seemed a little stale for the last few years, Blau reminds us why it worked in the first place with this consistently excellent, homespun album. The arrangements and performances feel loose, but in a way that perfectly serves Blau’s pop-shaman compositions. Beneath Waves is a prime slice of bedroom Brian Wilson, the type of album that will remind you why you started buying records in the first place.”
Even Salon throws its hat into the mix, albeit with a “sloppy” caveat:
“That level of artistic hyperactivity is evident in his music, which is sloppy and very hit-or-miss, but also has the playful looseness and loopiness that result from throwing together sounds in every possible combination just to see what sticks, as you can hear in this cracked reggae track from the K Records release “Beneath Waves,” his first for a relatively established label.”
Performer Mag
“On Blau’s new album, Beneath Waves, songs reflect that goal more in mood than structure; they rarely sound ‘stripped-down.’ Multiple instruments build up layers of sound for results that range from foreboding rock-out to contented waltz to undersea murmur. The ocean, and the Anacortes area, are constantly leaking into his songs. ‘It’s a really salty record, definitely revolving around Skagit Valley,’ says Blau.”
Exclaim (scroll down and click on “Karl Blau”)
“Beneath Waves is highly commendable and completely engrossing, a tender creative leap into joyous enlightenment.”
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Merek@Sleephouse writes:
Hey there Alex,
this is merek from Sleephouse. Really glad you like my podcast. I’ve met you before if you remember. I used to be the editor of discorder and I interviewed you guys for the Department of Safety feature that was on the cover. In the Sugar Refinery, remember?
I’m in London these days and I started Sleephouse as a hobby thing. How’s DoS going? I love that place. man, best place ever. an inspiration, truly.
posted Feb 23, 07:30 AM ~ #
Karl Blau writes:
Hey Alex, this is really sweet. Thankyou. I had to break down and read a few,
This makes me the kind of sick that licking a whole huge lolli does, but gosh. thanks! Azure!
Hey Alex and anyone, check out this new game that I made up on my site kelpmonthly.com it’s got potential I think.
posted Feb 24, 12:35 PM ~ #
Alex writes:
Holy crap, Karl! That “game” is awesome! So DIY. Screw Flash, right? All you need is an imagemap, some frames, and some Quicktime.
posted Feb 24, 04:13 PM ~ #
kirsten writes:
there’s also a really great one in this months ‘bitch’. yay karl!
posted Feb 24, 04:26 PM ~ #
Bret writes:
compendium… differerent from discography…can someone do one of those here or somewhere while we still remember the purple shack of 4 track?
posted Feb 27, 10:36 PM ~ #
Alex writes:
What somebody needs to do is make a site like those Phil fans made: mounteerie.trivialbeing.net
Karl needs a discography, a news page, a fan forum, etc. Any takers?
posted Feb 28, 03:10 PM ~ #
Philip Ashlock writes:
Are we about to see a second wave of reviews? At least one more to add to the mix: Karl Blau: Beneath Waves: Pitchfork Review
posted May 22, 11:32 PM ~ #