White Sea – “Never A Woman” (Stereogum Premiere)
Morgan Kibby is one of those ecstatic voices on your favorite M83 records, but in recent years she’s been recording her own music as White Sea too. As you might expect given her Anthony Gonzalez affiliation, Kibby’s band deals in artful ’80s pop stylings, but her music switches out M83’s widescreen scope for contagious body-moving immediacy. Next year she’ll drop the follow-up to 2014 debut In Cold Blood, and judging from the early singles, it will be her best work yet. The latest, “Never A Woman,” is practically guaranteed to have you grooving from side to side and might even elicit some hallelujah hands; I speak from experience here. Over a vamping keyboard riff and relentless bass part that wouldn’t be out of place on a Bleachers song, Kibby lets her vocals veer from breathy whispers to a rip-roaring falsetto that soars past the pleasingly mangled lead guitar damage and up into the stratosphere. I heartily recommend that you listen below along with previous single “Stay Young, Get Stoned.”
“Never A Woman” is available on iTunes tomorrow, 10/13. Beginning this Wednesday, 10/14, White Sea begins a four-week residency at the Bootleg Theater in LA; get more details at KROQ.