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King Krule Returns With An Absurdist Video Behind New Song 'Czech One'

King Krule is Archy Marshall, who beat-sings poetry that tumbles up and down like a diary written in M.C. Escher-space, through a voice like a languorous boxing glove.

"Czech One," Marshall's first new song since 2013, is an appropriately named, tentative step back up to the mic and early morning toe-dip in the lake of his avant-lounge (or fauxotica-jazz, or absinthe-core).

"I said, 'Do you know where I'm coming from,' he sings. "And she looked me in the eye / Lover boy you drowned too quick / You're fading out of sight'"

In the video, Krule appears in an ill-fitting, hideous brown suit, quickly boarding a dreamplane to travel the world, before the edges of reality start to crack. A lover he's left emerges at his window while the bathroom door opens onto a city street... a brilliant distillation of King Marshall's cracked and psyched headspace.

I didn't like Krule when he first emerged; there was an overconfidence perhaps, or an assumption of talent coupled with a sneer at its existence. There seems, in addition to the maturity in his physical features, the calming and self-questioning maturity of age present in the reappearance of King Krule. Aloof may he reign.


The single "Czech One" b/w "Dum Surfer" will be released Sept. 13 on True Panther. He's on tour this fall.

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