Album Review: Kali Brings All The Feels on 'TO FEEL ALIVE'

Spanning four tracks over ten minutes, Kali Uchis’ EP teases listeners with its jam-packed emotion and fleeting duration.

Written by Samantha Paradiso

Kali Uchis has never shied away from incorporating her language and culture in her tracks, but when she released “Solita” in December of last year, fans were surprised to hear a track sung predominantly in Spanish over a reggaeton beat. Despite the track being touted as a sneak peek into the Colombian singer’s sophomore LP, that project has since been halted, and it’s unknown whether her second album will follow. Although it’s not the sophomore album everyone’s been anticipating, Kali Uchis’ TO FEEL ALIVE EP is a sweet taste of what the artist has been cooking up during quarantine. Recorded entirely in her bedroom, the EP feels a bit more intimate and mellow than her debut album Isolation. Created within a couple days' time, Kali explores a wide range of emotions on this EP with laxidasical origins. And though sonically different, this EP pays homage to both the artist’s last projects in its album art, stating that the two women portrayed on the cover are, “the Isolation era of me eating the Por Vida era of me’s p-ssy.”

In its first few seconds, opening track “honey baby (SPOILED!)” brings listeners back to the Por Vida Kali, its sound reminiscent of the lulled and breathy “Sycamore Tree” and “Loner.” The combination of birds chirping, Kali’s echoed vocals, and the synthesized keys create an Edenic feel that quickly shifts into a contagious trap beat. Her vocals, though still true to her brand, are unlike any other song she’s released prior. Her lengthy runs paired with her shaky tone in lines like, “If I think too much I might come up with / Reasons to have doubts” evoke a sense of fragility and angst that sets the stage for the rest of the EP.

Her next track, “angel,” turns it up a notch with a rapid succession of key notes and deep bass. Even within her first lyric, “Everybody wants it, everybody's waiting / Baby, you should know that you're everything I'm craving,” Kali goes from the silver spoon consentida in “honey baby (SPOILED!)” to demanding upfront requests from her lover. Just as quickly, the mood shifts once again in “i want war (BUT I NEED PEACE).” With layered crooning backed by light piano keys, this track starts off as a drowsy daydream with intensity that later increases with a beat similar to a heart pounding. Coming down from the hard and fast “angel,” this track feels a bit more resigned, evident in her lyrics, “Take a look at what you made me / Calling me crazy, that's what you made me.”

Concluding the EP is the titular “TO FEEL ALIVE.” The ascending notes of the bass, along with Kali’s repeated, “I just want to feel something,” encapsulates the anxious and restless energy of this project. The Colombian singer has spoken to her struggle as a child of immigrants in the past, opening up on this Genius interview about the meaning of her lyrics in “After the Storm.” When talking about watching her cousins grow up from a distance she says, “I missed out on [their] whole life.” And these same melancholy emotions are translated in this track as seen in her lyrics, “I miss my family, things will never be the same / To all the people that we lost, I'm screamin', ‘Rest in peace,’” which are immediately followed by her outro’s incessant “I just wanna feel somethin' / I just wanna feel alive.” The last 30 seconds of the track escalates with Kali’s layered vocals, her piercing howls intertwined with her mantra-esque outro. Her voice’s high register mimics a mystified siren call that leaves listeners on the edge of their seat with her final, resonating “I just wanna feel alive.” Similar to the static reverb following the outro’s incantation in “honey baby (SPOILED!),” ''TO FEEL ALIVE” ends abruptly with no fade outs, leaving behind the phantom echo of Kali’s last word.

Since her 2018 debut album Isolation, fans have patiently waited for the R&B artist to push her sophomore LP with more features and more genre-bending music. Instead, listeners received a meditative EP whose flitting duration ends in the blink of an eye. And although unplanned, the project is reflective of the current global climate and the uncertainty of what’s to come after this all blows over. The contrasting use of ordinary sounds like nature and heartbeats paired with her almost haunting vocals creates a surreal feel that makes it difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality. In these four tracks, Kali explores the complexities of lust, infatuation, reclamation, desire, and nostalgia, opening the door to her intimacies and what it’s like to cope with love in the times of quarantine.

REVIEWSAfterglow ATXApril 28, 2020