Photo credit: Weston Rich
Klassik
In between all the chaos and clamor we come in contact with daily, moments of quiet have become a bit of a luxury, a much needed yet seldom pleasure many of us aren’t afforded. But for Milwaukee artist Klassik, they’re a necessity. His latest album, QUIET, is the culmination of these necessary moments. It’s an ethereal offering that sheds some light on the freedom that those periods of introspection can grant us when they’re exercised.
Back in March, Klassik—known for his style that’s not quite hip-hop, not quite R&B and not quite jazz, but rather a hybrid that weaves all of these together—put out the live album American Klassiks. It featured re-workings of songs from protest-folk singers such as Woody Guthrie and the national anthem—“This Land (What About Me?)” and “The Black-Spangled Banner”—brought to life through collaboration with local musicians Monique and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings, and Johanna Rose and Carl Nichols of Nickel&Rose. The set of songs holds an added electrical charge as the all-star roster of Milwaukee-centric musicians transform Milwaukee’s history and ever-present narratives into these musical emblems of centuries-old Americana, catapulting it into 2019 (“From Californ-I-A to the New York island / This land was made for you... but what about me?”).
On his latest album, the Milwaukee artist sharpens his focus further. The meticulous, patient pace of QUIET’s opener, “M.Y.T.,” sets the stage as he sings “I’ve seen it in your eyes / I know there’s something that you feel, you wanna say...” against an unraveling of piano notes. A clash of voices starts to take center stage, but Klassik is quick to cancel them out before they get any louder (“You’re making...too much...too much noise! Shh…) in what is a clear-as-day proclamation about staking out your space in the overstimulating, always-connected conditions we’ve become accustomed to.
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A similar thread runs through “Goals” (“See I don’t watch the news / cause it’s all despair to me”) as he shows off his versatility via smooth vocal delivery in the song’s hook, switching back and forth into wordsmith mode. “ACTIVE,” one of the album’s singles, marks a turning point in the record where Klassik pivots to more experimental material. It’s the clarity and a drawn-up course of action that follows hard meditation time. In the Wes Tank-directed video, Klassik takes listeners onto the side of the surreal, complete with mind-bending visuals. Chicago rapper Saba tag teams-it on “NOISE,” a lush, dense track that makes full use of a variety of layers of auto tune and pitch shift-like effects.
“Reality Check” is the equivalent of a sneak attack and shows that Klassik isn’t here to play anyone’s game: “You’ve been busy running your mouth / I’ve been too busy running the show... Middle finger to your purgatory / My sheen gleams in sunbeams / I dream in color and in rhyme / But we’ve got no common themes... I’ve got no time for two-timers and half-steppers.” The closer, “Spirit,” pairs gospel overtones with the allure of the Ross sisters’ cello and violin. In his own words—“Klassik is truly an old soul”—but his music says otherwise. He’s already a few steps ahead and per usual, is not bound to the restrictions of one genre, and this remains true in his latest work.
