Upon my first listen of White Hinterland’s newest release, Kairos, off of Dead Oceans, I immediately thought that this would be the sexiest thing you could throw on when you bring somebody home after a night out on the town. Of course, I imagined the evening through the lens of the classic male gaze, behind a phallic camera, looking down on the chosen mate.
She would be in soft focus and would stand out from the crowd as we made intimate eye contact from across the dance floor as aggressively sexual jamz pumped through the speakers. Insert your favorite pick up scenario here (bump into each other, pick up her dropped purse, she asks you if she could bum a cigarette, etc.) and eventually make our way to some fancy loft that is apparently mine and throw on this record, with its deep and soft ambience provided by slow and sensual bass beats and sultry female vocals. Insert whatever must be inserted here for your ideal one night stand.
But that’s an incredibly ridiculous scenario that only happens within the comfort of the male gaze we’ve seen a million times from the safety of a dark theatre, where anonymity makes it all seem plausible. In reality, the album’s effects are a little more disquieting if I am going to be perfectly honest.
The music is still very sexy. Like I said, the music itself is very deep and soft, a sort of cool down, a gentle and flowing transition from everything jarring about modern living. But if we step away from what we/I think the average male wants to hear, there is another type of beauty being projected back.
Kairos begins with “Icarus,” in which Casey Dienel wanders through a grove of eucalyptus trees (male gaze again) to a swirling synth-bass wondering why she “must always see the ending in the beginning.” I immediately get the excitement of a damsel in distress. I am happy in the same way I am happy when my girlfriend is sick. It’s this perverse subconscious joy that I am needed, that I can be useful, that I can be used yet still maintain a certain element of power.
However, as the album goes on, Dienel proves to be more. “Bow and Arrow,” at least to me, feels almost emasculating. The music becomes less focused on the inviting warmth of the bass and use, more percussive staccato than any other track (if that is the proper use of the word staccato). She sings, “I never know what might set you off/You wanna kiss me but you don’t know how/I wanna hold you but I can’t right now/You wanna love me but you don’t know how.” It totally sucks, I don’t have the unquestioned control I thought I had and I’m not the man that I thought I was. There are thoughts and powers beyond my control.
And that is how I feel during “Cataract.” It is this haunting confirmation that there are these things and emotions that cannot be seen or heard or ever understood without being tainted by your interpretation influenced by your own simplified world views.
White Hinterland has outdone themselves with Kairos. The album is sexy in a spiritual way. It inspires a recognition of beauty that is beyond recognition, a sublime sexuality devoid of invested interest in immediate gratification. Kairos undermines the shallowness of the one night stand and has the power to arouse a deeper connection.