King Krule: self-titled (12"EP) [TRUE PANTHER SOUNDS]

Why you'll love it

This 12-inch EP plays at 45 RPM and includes a download card. It's the first record under the King Krule name, written and performed by Archy Marshall at 17 and co-produced with Rodaidh McDonald.

This edition

• 45 RPM
• Download card included

About the album

Archy Marshall grew up shuttling between his dad's house in Peckham and his mum's in East Dulwich, went through the Brit School, and started putting songs online as Zoo Kid in 2010. A year later he switched to King Krule and made this five-song EP, and the voice arrived fully formed, a deep, cracked baritone that sounds decades older than the lad singing it.

The songs mix jazz chords, dub space, punk scuff and hip hop patience. "The Noose Of Jah City" is the slow-burning centrepiece, all reverb and late-night bus windows, "Portrait In Black And Blue" and "Lead Existence" show off his twangy, chiming guitar, and "363N63" and "Bleak Bake" lean on beats and atmosphere. Rodaidh McDonald, who mixed it with him, keeps everything sparse and close. Marshall wrote, sang and played the lot himself, and every song sounds lived-in, as though he'd been singing them for years.

It set the template for 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, The Ooz and everything since. Most of us at 17 were mainly perfecting the art of being late for things, so frankly this is all a bit much.

Also at Kops: more King Krule on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On True Panther Sounds (cat# TRUE-060 1), the 2011 EP.