“Since K Got Over Me”
from the album Strange Geometry
2005
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The Clientele never hit you over the head with anything, but here they come closer than ever before. “Since K Got Over Me” is total ’60s sunshine pop, but it shoots for understatement rather than candy-coated pop-smithery, surrounding languid vocals with little chunks of “Sloop John B.” Oh, and apparently this K person is a real heart-breaker: “Everything’s so vivid and so creepy/ Since K got over me/ There’s a hole inside my skull with warm air blowing in/ Standing on the sidewalk/ Where do I begin?” The nostalgia, the dejection, the anger — it’s all here and heavy. Still though, what a relief: The Clientele’s last one The Violet Hour choked on its own twilight haze, and thankfully the band’s abandoned that sound here for a more direct, more immediate delivery.