Paper Television

I sat next to Khaela Maricich on the plane to Paris.

This is a fact I like to throw around whenever given the chance. She was really hungry, and I wasn't going to eat my plane food, and so she ate both of my plane meals. And we talked. About how she was a musician who I had never heard of before (but I had heard of her label, K Records). About how I was on my way to film school. About how she was on her way to play a show or two in France. About alot of things. I didn't sleep much at all during the nine-hour flight, and when we got to Paris the next morning, we groggily shuffled through the long, slow customs line, and she took out her digital camera and took pictures of the airport, and I took some pictures of her, and as our passports were validated by the surly early-morning CDG airport staff and we walked out into the terminal, I went to join my waiting friend, and she went to find the bus. And that was the last time I saw Khaela Maricich.


Khaela Maricich is The Blow. Since then, she's teamed up with Jona Bechtold (aka Y.A.C.H.T.), and since then, The Blow has become one of my favorite artists of all time. The music used to be Khaela's conversational yelping over minimalist weirdo-acoustica / low-fi electronic pulses. Her lyrics dealt with everyday problems, but from not quite so everyday points of view. (Take, for example, the song in which she asks her own molecules to quickly take a vote and decide whether an acquaintance is worth pursuing romantically).

These themes continue, but with electro glitch-hop whizkid Y.A.C.H.T. at the boards, throwing basically complicated pop music at the mostly happy singer in Khaela Maricich. The new album , Paper Television, is out October 24, and comes highly reccomended. And you can trust my judgement; I'm a close friend, obviously.

The Blow - Parentheses (mp3)
The Blow - Pile of Gold (mp3)
The Blow - Babay (Eat A Critter, Feel Its Wrath) (mp3)