Kat Larios

From seemingly out of nowhere weirdo acoustic singer-songwriter Kat Larios materializes on the local musical landscape fully formed; a Romilar-voiced, gifted, and wickedly surreal lyricist for whom even the term “unique” doesn’t quite suffice. Actually, Larios is from Kingston and gestated as the front woman of defunct unit Concrete Wave, rather than beneath a bed shared by Nico and Antony Hegarty, as her slo-mo folk croak suggests—well, kind of suggests, at least. In truth Bathos in Aqua, her beguiling debut and the first release on upstate indie Safety Clyde, is damn hard to describe, always a good sign when it comes to music. But here goes, anyway…

Though she also plays organ and accordion and there’s a handful of unobtrusive guests on board—including Mercury Rev’s Grasshopper on guitar and clarinet and Lou Reed/R.E.M. ancillary Jane Scarpantoni on cello—the sound of Bathos in Aqua is mainly just Larios with only her guitar or ukulele for company. And yet somehow from the perch of her stool Larios weaves a mysterious, slowly swirling whirlpool spell, dragging you down, down, ever deeper down, into her gray-hued, world-watching anonymous cave. A creeped-out reading of “Misirlou” puts a heretofore unheard downer-psych spin on the oft-covered Greek traditional, but it’s really Larios’s sour, wounded warbling on “Gangrene” (“Gangrene / aquamarine / skeletal melting unforeseen, sardines / Vaccine / needle sheen / every day is Halloween, ceasing”) and other originals that’s the irresistible, dark force at work here. The freak folk revolution has a new date with destiny, and her name is Kat Larios.—Peter Aaron - Roll Magazine

There’s a world of difference between trying to be an eccentric artist and innately being an eccentric artist. I believe Kat Larios to be weird-wired. Envision Tracy Chapman, Tiny Tim, and Little Jimmy Scott in some David Lynch/carny-esque scenario and you’ll have something akin to the musical side of Bathos in Aqua. This acoustic Kingstonite is a minor-chord minimalist, relying mostly on freakish warblings and lone instruments—ukelele, accordion, guitar, organ—to produce 13 hypodermic tunes with simplistic strummings and unnerving, repetitive strains. Larios’s sparsely spaced guest artists on this record include Grasshopper (Mercury Rev) on clarinet, and cellist Jane Scarpantoni (Lou Reed, REM, 10,000 Maniacs).

After hearing 20 seconds of track one, this reviewer was riveted. Then came the lyrical doppelganger, sucked screaming from the muse of confusion. Larios is a smacking wordsmith, a madman’s puzzle prophet, offering a refrigerator magnet-poetry acid trip brimming with ill-iteration and tongue-tripping wordplay: “Oh console / fold-out molting / high-end hole / eat-in quarantine” (from “Molting Consultant”); “Gotta rot, go carve a notch / wretched wrist / demolish watch / tick-tock uneven” (from “Gray Area”). Readers, don’t be stupid enough to ignore a paragon of profundity when it’s staring you in the kisser. - Chronogram Magazine