Between shows in Chicago (at Lincoln Hall) and Denver (at Meow Wolf) — and with about 40 other performances under their collective belts — Kerala Dust confessed to me they’re nowhere near stopping anytime soon.
The dance-powered rock quartet are on the way to a string of shows in India in December, with stops in Thailand and back to Germany, a country they currently call home (Berlin, to be exact). Even with all of that behind them and in front of them, they still found the time and energy for a special stop at Studio Milwaukee.
I asked multi-instrumentalist, singer and group founder Edmund Kenny, “Who watches your plants and pets when you’re gone for so long?” He assured me that his golden retriever Oscar was in good hands, even though he had recently gotten into a small scuffle with another dog at a park back home. He produced a photo of a sad-faced fluffer with a plastic collar around his neck as evidence.
Checking in on pets and plants from afar hasn’t altered Kerala Dust’s vibe machine. After releasing An Echo of Love in August (via PIAS Recordings)], they’re still savoring the experience to the max.
Popping in one full hour earlier than most artists, expressly to dial in their setup and sound, they greeted a full room of our members with a chipper, “Good morning, Milwaukee.” With that, they figuratively flipped the switch on those bright sunbeams filtering through the orange garage doors and morphed the performance space into a proper Berlin club.
The first song of the set, “The Orb, TX,” saw Kenny getting into his groove, giving the audience a taste of his near-constant movement behind the mic while surrounded by piles of cords and synths. This was the Church of Kerala Dust, and he was the preacher, raising his hands to the ceiling as he sang, “I double down on heartache, I seek love and find grace.”
Live drums melded with synths and searing guitar (that often sounded like a synth) for a potent brew that felt like Mark Lanegan-meets-Depeche Mode. And even though Kenny cited the particular inspirations of Franz Ferdinand, Tom Waits, Mercury Rev and Bob Dylan, the appeal never felt exactly like any one of those artists and instead pulled little elements from each.
Hushed unison-singing from all members of the band really keyed in the dynamic shifts Kerala Dust are so expert at creating on their records and during their live performances. It was pretty riveting.
During the interview, Dori prompted some lineage-tracing from Kerala Dust, who formed in London and bloomed in Berlin (after a move “for the cheap rent,” as Kenny shared). The group’s name came from his experience teaching singing for a charity in the Himalayas; the doctor he worked with was from Kerala, India, and that worked its way forever into the band’s existence.
As for their latest record, the journey started in 2016 in the quietude of Tuscany — where the only distractions were “lovely old people” offering them Aperol spritzes — and then to the wide-open skies of Texas. It was there that they soaked in one of their newer inspirations: Stars of the Lid, an ambient music duo formed in Austin in 1992.
A name-drop of that band produced affirmative call-outs from members of our audience and a text-query to the 88Nine DJ line. It felt like Kerala Dust had opened up a little portal we were all transported to (and didn’t want to extricate ourselves from).
Lucky for you, you can live in that space whenever you want by finding Kerala Dust’s new record and tapping into the energy of this live performance via the player at the top of the page. As this installment proved, every one of these Studio Milwaukee Sessions are wonderfully unique, and you can guarantee yourself a spot at all of them by becoming a Radio Milwaukee member today.
Studio MKE: Kerala Dust set list
- “The Orb, TX”
- “How The Light Gets In”
- “Bell”
- “Violet Drive” (non-broadcast performance)
