Captn K
Salad Days
(Picnic Records)

Opening with a super cool stomp beat and metallic percussion backing of the title track, we are off to some good danceable electronica on Captn K’s new Ep Salad Days.

“Body n Soul” utilizes some cool keyboard layering, bubbling up from a slow beginning to find its beat, with washing and floating single-note echo sounds. I like how the Captn builds this one especially. Touches like a high hat sound slips in, there’s funky riffing on the keys, then the hits of some female ‘yeah hey’s’ and even further layering of percussion makes a solid tune.

“Try Harder,” once again sees the Captn getting quite creative with his drum machine beat. It rises in intensity as the simple three-note chord keys progression increases, then drops out for a plopping keys rhythm that keeps up the kinetic pace with the drums.

A tight beat high-hat works through almost all of the last tune, “City Tracking.” The Captn manages little trills among the two-note back and forth of the low bed of keys. I like how this one grooves and opens up later as we lose that initial high hat ticking, to get some low base, another spoken word line repeated, and even a simple single-note key lead that I didn’t expect.

There are lots of imaginative compositions on Salad Days, an electronica EP that certainly promises songs worth a good deep listen.