Best Friend from The K.I.J Experience redefined swagger with indie sleaze and soul

The K.I.J Experience laid down a groove like he was warming up at CBGB with his latest single, Best Friend, taken from the longlisted debut LP 12 from 24. The swanky-with-swathes-of-swagger track struts in with an unfiltered looseness, inviting listeners to the middle ground between the leathered drawl of Jim Morrison and the swirling synth rush of Inspiral Carpets. If you can hear Morrison vocally riding the infamous UK organ lines, you’re halfway to grasping the strange magic conjured here. More than anything, it’s the middle-eight that catches you off guard, where the raucous electricity dials back to let a wave of Beatles-esque psychedelia flood in. As the instruments stretch out and soften, Karl Ian James extends longing across the airwaves with the kind of tenderness that quietly pulls apart the bravado. ‘Best Friend’ doesn’t yearn for lust or hedonism; it aches for reciprocity, mutual madness, someone to meet you halfway in your madness and call it connection. Welsh multi-instrumentalist and producer Karl Ian James has made a name for himself by threading his off-kilter sonic imagination with his wry observations on love, loss, grief, and everything skewed in-between. From scribbling three-minute heart-pangs to soundtracking heartbreak on Amazing Radio and […]

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