Koi Kingdom 'Pink Milk' out now

Pink Milk is the second album by Melbourne based trio Koi Kingdom featuring saxophonist Cheryl Durongpisitkul, bassist Stephen Hornby and guitarist Marcos Villalta. Pink Milk captures the groups’ raw energy and playful interaction on eight original compositions. The release highlights the groups’ long episodic pieces, interlocking contrapuntal melodies, quasi-latin grooves, humour and playful interaction. The detailed arrangements and intermittent improvisations showcase their quirky, considered and unpredictable aesthetic.

Following the success of their 2018 release and national tour for their debut album, Menagerie, Pink Milk was recorded in between the two 2020 Melbourne lockdowns. The music draws on  influences from Chick Corea, The Bad Plus, Esperanza Spalding and Egberto Gismonti, yet represents a refreshing and original approach to the drummerless format of saxophone, guitar and bass.

Koi Kingdom formed in 2016 after completing degrees at Victorian College of the Arts and West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. They subsequently spent several years leading their own groups, honing their respective musical craft. Koi Kingdom’s shared ethos runs deeper than style and aesthetic, reflecting a common value in exploratory and collective music making whilst embracing their diverse identities. “Koi Kingdom is a place where we can freely express ourselves, composing music for each other and working together to make a personal, collective sound,” reflects Stephen Hornby. “It's a space we know we can bring our whole, messy selves to - a secure base from which to explore our weirdest and wildest ideas.”

Pink Milk was recorded live over two days at Rolling Stock Studio in late June 2020 by Jem Savage. Additional recording was done by Stephen Hornby. All tracks were mixed and mastered by Savage.

Artist: Koi Kingdom
Album: Pink Milk
Release: April 16th, 2021
Label: Earshift Music distributed by MGM
Format: DL and streaming services
Catalogue Number: EAR048
Streaming/Download: https://ffm.to/pinkmilk
Personnel: Cheryl Durongpisitkul - alto saxophone and voice (track 7), Stephen Hornby - upright bass, Marcos Villalta - guitar, keyboards and percussion (track 8), Arah Strezovski - voice (track 8)

About the Music

French Tips (Stephen Hornby)

This piece was initially inspired by the progressive bluegrass band, Punch Brothers. They’re masters of creating grooves without drums, often using interlocking melodic parts to create rhythmic momentum. Another structural device Stephen borrowed from the bluegrass idiom was instrumentalists trading improvisational cycles. Cheryl and Marcos swap roles every cycle before the improvisation descends into a complete free for all.

Pivot (Cheryl Durongpisitkul)

An interplay of two moods colliding and wrapping themselves around each other. This piece was conceived in 2019 and completed during Melbourne’s first lockdown in 2020. Influenced by Egberto Gismonti and Esperanza Spalding, Pivot moves between a bouncing, child-like groove and  fire-spitting, interlocking contrapuntal melodies before the listener has had time to process what is going on. The title Pivot refers to the constant reorienting of oneself in times of uncertainty and distress; a feeling we all became familiar with during 2020. 

Summer Sandwich (Marcos Villalta)

This long form Samba composition draws influence from artists Chick Corea and Hermeto Pascoal.  A playful piece with long improvisations in the middle which explores its jazz-inspired harmony and rhythms. The piece closes with a surreal and mournful tango.

Ghosts (Stephen Hornby)

Ghosts is our attempt to break your heart. We love/need songs that help us get the waterworks going and we hope that this piece can help you exercise those feelings if or when you need it. Stephen named the piece Ghosts after he read the letter that Nick Cave wrote in response to a question from a fan. When we play this song we like to think about someone who has passed but might still be present in some way, like a musical eulogy.

Cloudscapes (Marcos Villalta)

We needed something quirky and weird for the album and Marcos delivered the goods. Cloudscapes is based on a brasilian acoustic guitar rhythm adapted for the electric guitar and utilises complex melodies and unresolved harmony to create a sense of tension and urgency. This up-tempo piece reaches its climax with a wild, virtuosic saxophone solo.

Portrait of a Black Hole

Inspired by the first ever photo taken of a black hole in 2019, this through-composed piece is split into two halves. The first half a frenetic series of interlocking lines and arpeggios shared amongst the three voices. The second half a melancholy, Milton Nascimento inspired, brazilian ballad intended to evoke a sense of our insignificance in the face of all of existence. 

Prose (Stephen Hornby)

Stephen wanted to compose a punchy little nugget, something short and dense. Prose was inspired by composer John Hollenbeck, the master of building a piece from a single musical cell;  in the case of Prose, it uses just 5 notes/chords. Rhythm, dynamics, articulation and transposition are the tools explored to create and maintain interest. The first half of Pivot is improvised and the second half through-composed. Listen out for Marcos shaking his sheet music and Cheryl sloshing her water bottle into the microphones to begin their improvisations.

Pink Milk (Stephen Hornby, Marcos Villalta, Cheryl Durongpisitkul)

We felt like we needed something more open and freer on the album. With a loose framework as a starting point, this piece is the most collaboratively composed on the album and the only one featuring overdubs and sprinkles of post-production delights. The title comes from a particularly cute video of Cheryl’s 2 year old nephew (who can be heard at the beginning of the piece) reading a book in which possums drink pink milk.