Kalistani Major History

[Doc]

Sonic Planter's second record neverknown hits Number one on Radio 1
Grit's Highest Charting Entry abandons acoustics for solid Grunge Rock Blast
Kaliburg Ananto
October 7, 4913


Sonic Planter's neverknown on VDR hits Number 1 in the Republic

The Port Swedes Grit sound has finally reached the top of the Charts in Kalistan, beating out several alt-folk and traditional alternative entries to become the top selling and top requested album in the entire country.  The album is also one of the biggest departures from the alt-folk roots of Grit, and the most grunge oriented Grit record to date.

Kris Conrad, lead singer of Sonic Planter, who is a critical darling in the Kalistani music press, and is also well thought of by his fans, was characteristicly understated by his band's topping of the charts in Kalistan.  "Yeah, well..." was his response, as he took a massive drag on a cigarette.  He had nothing else to say about it, before he was called away by band mates for a soundcheck, three minutes later.

The album spends more time plugged in than it does acoustic, demonstrating the Grit scene's growing frustration with association with the alt-folk movement that fed into it initially.  In a separate interview, Conrad was more talkative.  "I mean, yeah, but people keep talking about this Port Swedes sound...  they call it Grit...  I mean...  that's pretty uninventive, don't you think?  And like every band in Swedeport sounds the same?  And we all sound like we took lessons at Joanie's knee?  I think we've matured and I think we have grown, and we have always been loud as F--K...  so...  You know, Its like Yeshua, folks...  give us our due..."

Loud is a good word for the biggest record in the country, which is Sonic Planter's second album for VDR.  "We made the bass extra thick, like gravy," said Sonic Planter bassist Benjamin Colberg, "And Matty (Gill, drummer for Sonic Planter) did ALL kinds of strange time sequences... almost like Math Rock.  And don't even get me started on the Wizard (Ken Mayall, also known as the "Wizard of Swedeport")  the tracks he laid down are drills into the brain"  Without much in the way of acoustic guitars or melodies or orchestration which is fairly standard on Grit records to date, the album threatens to not even fall into the category of Grit.  "it is probably the most grungy stuff we've done to date," said Colberg.  The closest song to the actual Grit style is the final song of the album, "Surprise Her" while the song "foureighths" takes the acoustic format of Grit and turns it on its head, introducing a hint of Vascanian aesthetic into Kalistani music with the use of sitars and acoustic guitars which are subsequently turned into a trippy psychedelic sonic environment.

Most of the songs are about dystopic, with darker themes than were heard on their first album.  Songs like "Drown Me" and "Blackest of Black" are relentless driving songs about anomistic despair, bordering on fatalistic Annihilation.  "The Day I Died Twice" is a song about Conrad's brief career as a drug user, and "Surf's Up" is about people who have different expectations of him and his band than they have of themselves.  "A lot of this stuff is about stuff that we have spent years dealing with," said Colberg.  "The whole band, I mean, it really sucks living in this sh--ty town where it rains all the time, and sometimes you feel starved just for a ray of sunlight, but like we survive somehow anyway." 

Perhaps the most powerful song in this host of very personal, very loud music is the song "Murder of Crows".  Though it has not been attributed as such, some people believe that this song was also about how the death of Jennifer Stepanov deeply affected Conrad.  "I think he was a little bit in love with her," said Colberg.  "We tease him about it and he gets kind of defensive, but I would say this song is more of a love song to her ghost than anything and when she died, he fell into a very deep depression.  But to cope with that, he turned to music, and got this band together, so in this sense, it was something that turned out alright for him.  It could have gone much worse."

With such a massive record at the top of the charts, Grit and bands that are associate with that will only continue to be released in the Republic for the time being, and talent scouts for various record labels are now fairly permanently camped out in Port Swedes, attending all the shows, and listening to all the bands.  Grit records have now been released by both VDR and ARC, and there is a suggestion that KMI may be getting ready to jump into the game as well.  But for now, the spotlight belongs almost completely to Sonic Planter.

Listen to neverknown here.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzWEIiM8us]