Forget about Barcelona. The sun, the beach, and the warmth can be found in antifa caves here in Berlin. Schokoladen was the cave where Kitty Solaris showed her last album Cold City, which is as refreshing as can be.
The push of recent waves in music to extend its boundaries has given our ears an urge to feel surprised when we hear a new artist. Kitty Solaris‘ music has a sound that brings you back to when simple melodies and rocky beats made a good song everlasting in your memory. Songs that tend to stick in your mind because they bring a personal experience back to life for just a few seconds.
The place was half-crowded when the first band started. Fjaka started playing a Bruno Mars kinda-funky-rock given by the groovy bass and steady drums, a tight rhythmic section that felt to drift behind when the singing came in. It might have been the predictable melodies or the sudden falsetto in the singer’s voice, but the band sounded much better when he was focusing on playing the guitar rather than singing. After half of Fjaka’s show the mood on their songs went in another direction, you could hear a little The Doors-esque darkness, and some more bluesy tunes which take away the idea of the band having its own sound.
After about an hour of Fjaka’s comings and goings, Kitty Solaris went up. The band featured Kitty on guitar, a back up guitarist, the drummer and the keyboard player, who seemed to be a feature for the night. The way they looked gave an air of confidence when Kitty and the drummer started rocking the first song -for three songs, the keyboard player just sat there and drank beer. The bassist wasn’t needed, the deep sound of the guitar made it unnecessary. The welcomeness of the performance made you think the song would have been enjoyed even it had only been played by an acoustic guitar around a fireplace.
This enjoyable element in Kitty Solaris’ music is a mixture of simple beats accompanied by relatable lyrics – making their music a beating heart, one that can have rushes as seen as in the song I Only Want My Money Back, which was in the encore and played with power and emotion, as well as calmness as seen in the song Goldmine.
The deep connection between the drummer and Kitty was clear – you could hear the years of playing together in every break they made. Don’t be fooled by the smoothness of the production style of the album, because this is clearly a live band and, when they play songs live, the punk raw base of the group’s sound comes to life. The honesty of the lyrics and the fun the band has while playing makes Kitty Solaris an enjoyable show no matter the mood or the place, and at the end we have to thank them for reminding us we are all cut from the same cloth.
