"The Heart's Knot" by KB-S: A Cinematic Embodiment of Emotion

Minneapolis-based artist KB-S has just released "The Heart's Knot," a deeply affecting single that represents a haunting contemporary representation of lo-fi downtempo indie rock and hip-hop that embraces vulnerability in a purely visceral way and disregards any obligation to convention. "The Heart's Knot" is self-produced out of a home studio, and while it is a single, it represents something more; it is an emotional sculpture. 

It's easy to draw parallels to the traditional types of emotional artwork you find in galleries, but the way that KB-S manipulated the strings from the moment of opening with warped analog sound to the final swelling before the bustling orchestral sounds of the past returned to the forefront; "The Heart's Knot" creates a blurring and confounding haze of emotion that embodies the feeling of grasping onto something long since passed.

This is not to suggest that "The Heart's Knot" obeys any sort of typical canon of song structure; it follows a feeling. The processed timpani strikes offer echoes that remind us of a workable rhythm like an out-of-control heartbeat. The ambient vocal samples float like every unthought thought you've ever had. The textures offered here are purposely aged, imperfect, and matured, reflecting an understanding of how fragile memory and grief are. You're not merely hearing the project, you are feeling it within the chest; within the small cavity which loss and longing pull tight like the core of a knot.

This record distinguishes itself with emotional honesty and cinematic depth. "The Heart's Knot" occupies a space of in-betweenness and is not defined by genre, much like the feelings it conjures. It is a soundtrack for quiet accounting and late-night questioning and ultimately reveals that KB-S is not following trends, but composing sonic stories rooted in truth and humanity.