Kyle John Kenowski - Ourugorus Garden One EP

It’s evident that following the success of Need Disease (almost exclusively on Deko.fm), Kyle John Kenowski had no idea what to do. Exhausted of all his emotions, the phenomenal artist had a plethora of expertise and no reason to express it.  This is evident by Kenowski’s release strategy, in which he’d hope to release a track a month exclusively on Patreon before releasing small EP’s along the way. Seemingly, time had not aligned with Kenowski’s goal, who has somewhat disappeared from this scene. More to that later. Since it’s such a short EP, here’s a lazy summary of the five tracks:

1.       May We Weather Winter Well – playful, exotic, weird.

2.       A Transient Thing – Somewhat directionless, especially towards the end.

3.       Sabrina, Savannah, Green Tortoise – Best song on the album next to the opener, though nowhere near as good as anything on Need Disease. I really like the ending section, even if it repeats musical techniques the artist has utilised in the past.

4.       Papier-mâché – Peculiar and playful, albeit pointless.

5.       Nic-Nac - Basically just Sucrose Overdose from Need Disease, but far less depressing.

In isolation, each song is really good, but there’s nothing to unify the track-listing aside from a sense of mysticism. A natural phenomenon of releasing an album as you go along. As mentioned before, the artist has not made music for a while. Perhaps this is because of the pressure of attaining such a grand goal. I can only imagine it’s how Sufjan Stevens felt after proposing an album for all 52 states of America, only to disappear from the music scene for a decade after figuring out he was gay and thus a hypocrite to his religion.

I understand Kenowski’s desire to make a 100 track album, one track at a time, but he’s better off making them first, though. Notwidthstanding, the artist is certainly skilled enough to pull it off; I have high hopes for the next EP. Nonetheless, it’s a shame in the meantime I have to end another review recommending Need Disease over x release, though not without good reason. It’s a brilliant album that never gets old. The thought put behind it goes a long way. Here’s hoping Kenowski can nail that magic again.

Above Average

Listen to it here:

https://kylejohnkenowski.bandcamp.com/album/ourugorus-garden-one-ep