Album Review: Caiti Baker – Dust (Part 1)

Gotta love the promise of a cracking EP. Caiti Baker’s Dust (Part 1) provides the right kind of tease – four precisely placed tracks that are clearly the result of making choices that suit the artist specifically rather than a timeline/deadline/external expectation.

Opener Gone provides a slow build, but haunting story-based opener. It's catchy but demanding the listener lean in. Next Gasoline picks up the pace a bit with a rolling rhythm and dark theme. Saint takes a more chilled approach, supporting Baker’s vocals with some dreamy backing soundscapes and allowing a really interesting use of pacing and space. Here, she strays into hints of electro in the best way too – another to hit ‘repeat’ on straight away to absorb the layers. It's a turn that continues with closer (for now) Enough, a track that evokes contemporary blues with big vocals moving backwards and forwards against a narrative that defies and asserts all at once. 

The trick for Dust (Part 2) is going to be how this Darwin-based artist continues the story – another collection that show’s a real range, or something that ties the threads together? Time will tell. In the meantime, these four are tasty indeed.