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After the House

by Sun Kin

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1.
2.
Trying to trust Trying not to take it personal My simple body Needs your gentle touch I don’t know much But I know how you make me feel You hold my body And I turn too much
3.
At night, there’s a blue light in my room Keeps me up and thinking about you At night, there’s a blue light in my room Keeps me up Oh it keeps me up Keeps me up Thinking about you
4.
5.
In the Cold 03:42
Heaven Lives in this house Please sit down and make yourself at home Sister Don’t sell me to rain Keep this soft so both of us are safe inside But if I were to be found in the night Two stories under rich wife sighing Don’t let them hear this! Is your business To put me on the street? If I find the basement where you hide And call yourself the neighbors in need Should call the police, flush these roaches Will rest in righteous dreams How can I be sure that there’s some kind Of lightbulb in my side Built myself this sight of paradise You don’t get to look this way Have you been waiting long? Cuz I love you, but this staircase keeps us both unhappy Have you been working alone?
6.
R.A.S.P. 03:40
Hold me Talk to me like you once did That boy clutching at his knees The smell hits on the jet bridge How do you know Something is going to happen and How do you know Nothing is going to happen to you How do you know How do you know before it happens How do you know If you’re in your room? The sun was strong But your arms were stronger Always in control You could surf the sky Every road and crescent open to you Years of paperwork and travel to fly Right here And I saw you crashing on your bicycle How do you know Something is going to happen and How do you know Nothing is going to happen to you How do you know How do you know before it happens A lump in my throat Fills up with the news A word I don’t know An entire language Dissipated pollen Now my roots grow long Tangled up below the topsoil searching For your gentle voice pressed on To tape How do you know Something is going to happen and How do you know Nothing is going to happen to you How do you know How do you know before it happens Landing too late You already knew
7.
Vishvarupa 06:25

about

Sun Kin is the project of Los Angeles based producer Kabir Kumar. Born in Bombay, India and raised in five different countries, Kumar’s music is informed by the intimacy and audacious vulnerability that can only exist through learning to bond through transience. Kumar has been making music under the Sun Kin moniker for nearly a decade, traveling from a psych folk project to something more rooted in a combination of the Middle Eastern and Indian pop music they grew up on with elements of Acid House, disco and R&B. Kumar’s whole life as an artist has been marked by momentum and migration. As they’ve homed in on their craft they’ve accumulated new sonic textures, new territories, and different modes of expression. This bricolage and deep inquiry into movement reaches its apotheosis on After the House, Kumar’s fourth full length as Sun Kin. It is here that they conjure together seven dance tracks designed for late night introspection.

While some might fear the idea of a blank page, for Kumar it is essential to their practice. They thrive with limited constraints, favoring any opportunity that allows them to experiment. “I love the feeling of fitting melodies into spaces within the groove. I think of them as friends, little friendly melodies that come over the more dystopian pulse of everything,” they say of the joys of making dance music.

After the House is speckled in drones, cement-colored LFO engineered chords, foggy swaths of chintzy house piano, and subterranean drum machines. To make these songs, Kumar relied heavily on improvisation, often using four on the floor as the basis to each track. Just take “Blue Light (Keeps Me Up at Night),” the first single they finished, as one example of adding vivid and intricate colors and textures to a blank page. The song brims with disco guitars, elastic congas, and meditative vocals which rise up from nothing more than a click track. “Everything fit in. I felt pretty singing the chorus. I felt more pretty than I’ve ever felt singing a chorus,” they say. Or perhaps “In the Cold,” a song inspired by Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, which features a crystal clear guitar solo and synth decay that feels like sequins on skin under a black light.

Equally essential to their work is collaboration. In 2018, Kumar released a split LP with Miguel Gallego (Miserable chillers), called Adoration Room. Kumar cites this record as a breakthrough for them musically. Gallego continues to be an important confidante, and helped sequence After the House. Kumar also considers their co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Geoff Saba (Forest Floor) to be an inspiring collaborator. “Every time I collaborate with these people I feel like they are imbuing some of their magic into me,” they say. For Kumar, collaboration is often nomadic, existing in the form of text messages and social media. This is something Kumar is especially excellent at, in part because of their migratory childhood, which taught them how to seek home in unexpected places—like the warm embrace of dance music. So much of Kumar’s craft on After the House is about the bliss that dance music provides, the intimacy it encourages, and the ways in which it can feel like a home for the listener to bask in, and feel safe inside.
- Sophie Kemp

credits

released February 12, 2021

Kabir Kumar - vocals, samples, guitars, drums, synths, electronic drum sequencing
Geoff Saba - electric guitar, bass guitar, synths, percussion, addtl production
Jake Kopulsky - percussion (on 2 and 3)
Miguel Gallego - electric guitar (on 5)
Sam Anderson - vocals (on 5)
Julian Fader - live drum kit (on 5 and 6)

Mixed by Geoff Saba at Itinerant Home Recordings
Mastered by Alex Previty
Cover by Danny Miller (danbodraws.com)

Special thanks to my parents, Miguel Gallego, Rachel Rossen, Ken Herman, Dan Kolpin, Styles Munson, Ally De Havilland, Josh Ginsberg, Kat Vidt, Evan Greenwald & Sarah Goldfarb

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Sun Kin Los Angeles, California

Sun Kin is
Kabir Kumar,
born in Bombay, broadcasting
tunes from Los Angeles
with friends.

Please send thoughts: goodfeels.feelsgood@gmail.com

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