Kiwi Jr. – Cooler Returns review

Now that almost nobody makes any money from releasing music anymore, squared by the fact that you can’t play it to anyone, the right to provoke, confuse and plagiarise is one that can be fully invoked, given that all the rules are sort of off the table.

These options being excercised isn’t of course always necessarily a bad thing; what is popular art after all if not an endless recycling of ideas being reset into fresh context. Kiwi Jr.’s self released debut Football Money was partially shaped by singer Jeremy Gaudet’s experiences after his relocation from Canada’s Prince Edward Island to Toronto, the dislocation and stimulus of a new environment looked at from an eccentrically wry perspective.

It also shamelessly mined both Pavement and The Modern Lovers for stylistic cues, treading on the toes of fellow acolytes such as Parquet Courts. The hand of Malkmus is clearly still, urm, audible on Cooler Returns, a follow up that arrives following a deal with the heavier weight Sub Pop label. There’s no evidence that’s changed much though, Maid Marian’s Toast recounting the story of an arson attack and accompanying insurance fraud whilst the Blondie-isms of Undecided Voters somewhat incomprehensibly covers Glasgow’s also fire damaged School of Art.

It doesn’t really matter any more though. They know it. We know it. Whatever works, right?

You can read the full review here.