HARD TO BE A GOD

A1 A2 B1 B2 B3 Don™t ya know it™s hard to be a god. No reason to sugar coat it, what you™re getting is peak Whitney K, poetry in motion and masterful writing where words, harmony, arrangements all dance in the same direction, free flowing through songs about change and memory. A voice as an instrument. Hard To Be A God is the new mini-album by Whitney K and follows 2021™s acclaimed ˜Two Years™. Now based in Montreal, once again Konner Whitney is accompanied by friend, musician and all-hands-on-deck collaborator Joshua Boguski and by multi-instrumentalist Avalon Tassonyi. From the opening notes of ˜While Digging Through The Snow™ it™s apparent that something magical is happening, like witnessing a šstate of grace›, a breathtaking delivery where the game has slowed down and the band is dazzled while proceeding in trance through the experience. This is ˜a moment™, a future staple, a daydreamer ballad where reassessing one™s life stock and its surroundings gently evolves into a wider narrative, one where you are left contemplating colonial legacy and its inevitable conclusion. ˜Not Unlike A Rock™ is a rollicking bongo cruiser plateauing with mixolydian guitar licks that would make deadheads realign; the cartwheeling percussion on ˜Two Strangers™ nervously advances carrying Queen Victoria on her drive, another abstract metaphor for colonialism in Canada. ˜Hard To Be A God™... well, it does take a while for a lesson to sink in. ˜Song For A Friend™ is the epic closer, a stunning majestic beautifully orchestrated song about losing that someone to another more desirable city„ or is it about the feeling of being left behind? Another hypnotic performance soaring above a wash of strings and piano weaving. ˜Hard To Be A God™™s hallucinatory pastoral album cover, a painting by Caro Deschênes depicting a rearing dog soaring above the deceased bodies of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Kris Kristofferson, epitomizes in many ways Whitney K™s approach. This is not simply a ˜kill yr idols™ situation, this is an open conversation, where storytelling becomes visionary and frames personal, poetic and often playful dérives through the histories of their imagination, bending and elevating a whole serious inventory of dreams.