Kassie Krut’s “Reckless” Will Make You Wanna Sell Your Guitar
The beloved rock band Palm is reborn as a footwork-loving electronic trio—with hooks!
Before Philadelphia’s Palm disbanded last year, they were often referred to as “math rock,” which was true enough of the way the guitar riffs and drumming style locked into some secret grid. Still, that polarizing genre stamp seemed like a disservice to the (excellent) band’s electronic experimentation and general weirdness, which made them more akin to, say, Animal Collective. Since 2020, Palm’s founding guitarists and vocalists, Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert, have quietly released dark dance music under the name Kassie Krut; 2022’s “Copycat,” for example, sounds indebted to Chicago footwork and Arca.
With Palm now firmly in the rearview window, Kurt and Alpert—along with producer Matt Anderegg—debuted more officially as Kassie Krut earlier this month with the release of “Reckless” and news of a forthcoming EP. After 30 seconds of total wub-wub submersion, the first words out of Alpert’s mouth on the song are, “If you ask me who I wanna be/I’ma spell it out so it’s plain to see/K-A-S-S-I-E-K-R-U-T.” (In the music video, the “S” in Kassie is written in Superman font—bold!)
Since this quasi declaration of self is coming from a trio that started as a solo project for Kurt, it seems as if Kassie Krut isn’t an alias as much as a state of mind; on “Reckless,” Alpert, sweetly disaffected, asks if you wanna be a freak like her. Suddenly you’re surrounded by heavy machinery, with the bass rattling your body and synth squelches tickling your eardrums. It’s surprisingly melodic in a sing-songy way, which adds to the song’s haunted feeling. Consider “Reckless” a visceral banger for the “reading Mark Fisher in the clurb” set, and an intriguing hello from new(ish) freaks on the scene.
