Kanga - KANGA

Though the Kanga name has been floating around the internet for quite some time thanks for the buzz from record label Negative Gain, I think she caught the industrial scene by storm with her performance at Cold Waves V. While I was not in attendance for the festival, I have seen a million and a half posts from friends on social media stating that Kanga absolutely wrecked on the stage. Said posts have also made me quite jealous I missed such an occasion. One of these days I'll be able to fly out there and attend one of those festivals. 

Anyway, Kanga is a producer based out of Los Angeles, California in the United States and has a better portfolio than most having worked on films such as Nightmare, The Devil's Carnival II, Insidious III, and The Conjuring II. The earliest material I've found from Kanga appears on her personal Bandcamp page as singles that were teasing this debut album and they were 'Wanted', 'Vital Signs', and 'Tension'. Her remix was also hand-picked by 3TEETH for their remix album, and was most recently featured on Aesthetic Perfection's recent single LAX.



Kanga's self-titled debut album has pop-like structures that are shifted and moved with distorted noise, echoing vocals, machine sounds, and Kanga's powerful chords. The first three songs 'Something Dangerous', 'Going Red', and 'Honey' takes excerpts from pop structures but destroys conventions thanks to their delivery of scattered industrial influences and sludgy guitars. 

The album then moves into tracks that can be touted as darker electropop that clash with distortion and noise every now and then. 'Viciousness', 'Saviour', 'Dissonance', and 'Vital Signs' all perfectly describe this vision. While I would also like to put 'Tension' in that category, the slower pace of it and noise that accompanies it put the track in along the lines of dreampop. 'Tension' is also the go-to track on the album if you want to hear Kanga's vocals in her best form; they're powerful, passionate, and made me melt. 

The final two tracks on the album took me by surprise as the wicked rhythms that took them over put them more along the lines of electro-industrial and EBM. This just showed Kanga's natural ability in electronic music; if she's not charming you with her voice, she's slamming you left and right with well spun, boot stomping electronics. 

Kanga is an industrial-pop sorceress whose spellbinding electronics is taking the scene by storm. Her music is jolly good, and where it is both obliterating it is hopeful like the duality of mankind. Calamitous yet hopeful. I could go on describing her music and sounds forever and ever but the most you can do is just go listen to her for yourself and grab a CD. So, Go do that. 
Oct 09 2016