K M T P – With Love, K M T P (Vinyl)

With Love, K M T P is an album which feels distilled from long times and great distances. Two days is a long time, Paterson sings packing a few bars of music with a thousand agonising moments. Earlier in the album, 2021 Was Fun invests that recent time with such poignant nostalgia, it turns years into decades.

Its a grandeur and depth of feeling that K M T Ps Keria Paterson has grown into. Born of a world-weariness and self-assurance that was only hinted at on their 2020 EP P.S C U SOON, this is the kind of debut that feels like its making good on the promise of that earlier worker the same vision, only cleaner, deeper, more refined.

Key to that vision is an unmistakably Aotearoa take on emo: campfire acoustic strums leading into churning walls of distortion, voices hoarse from last nights roadtrip sing-along, trumpets trading solos with third-hand synthesisers. Its a studio project for sure, but Paterson and producer Peter Ruddell (Wax Chattels, Sulfate) have built every impossible layer of guitar into a whole thats deeply organic every unexpected new sonic texture becoming the welcome entrance of an old friend.

At the centre is Keria’s devastatingly direct songwriting, the heavy-heartbeat soundtrack to losing direction, finding love, and figuring yourself out. Deceptively simple and disarmingly earnest, every song feels well-worn and quietly anthemic equally at home, blaring in the stadium, or discovered on a long forgotten mix CD. Its a blend of midwest chime, Britpop bounce, shoegaze churn, and bedroom experimentalism that brings to mind the best/noisiest of Flying Nun, but is all Patersons own.

I hope Im well, they sing on the albums last track, I hope that I see you again. Its safe to say that this is an album that will see listeners returning countless times, squeezing out every minute of regret, every second of wistful nostalgia, every metre of headlight bright road.

Vinyl LP (Baby Blue and White Marbled)

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Full Circle
3. Walk Out To Space 03:40
4. 2021 Was Fun
5. First Date 02:43
6. Interlude
7. 2 Days
8. 2:45 (Getting Old) 02:55
9. I’ll Wait, I’ll Watch
10. Ordinary Kid
11. Big Wide World
12. The End (Of The Day)