“‘The blue cave, dark deep unknown,’” he sings, once again making his retreat inward. “The blue cave, dark deep unknown,” he sings, once again making his retreat inward. On the set’s most explicit ode to the colour, “Lonely Blue”, it’s clear that while the shading has become a source of sonic inspiration, it also presents a source of personal refuge for the star, in its associations with calm and serenity, as well as a way to escape from his quick rise to stardom and avoidance of fame. “A new place to drown / Six feet beneath the moon,” he sings on “Bermondsey Bosom 2”, referencing his 2015 collaboration with his brother as well as his debut, before perhaps alluding to his many nom de plumes throughout his career: “He arose a bloodsucker / painting black and blue objects with projections of himself.” The lush set is also drowned in reflection – with Krule waxing nostalgic about his past, and musing about his personal body of work. Krule’s fixation on the colour and personal struggle with his own “blues” results in a sort of disappearing act, as he sings on “Czech One”: “As the sea of darkness forms, it casts us into night.” On the stark album standout “The Cadet Leaps”, he admits “We ooz two souls / pastel blues,” before getting lost again, “swimming through the blue lagoon.”
On “Sublunary” (a word which is defined as “belonging to this world as contrasted with a better or more spiritual one”), Krule makes the connection between the colour and madness ( “I’m not here / sublunary / I was made for sublunary / And in shades of blue lunacy”), while on “Midnight 01 (Deep Sea Diver)”, he asks if his sorrow is the cause of his isolation (“ Why’d you leave me? / Because of my depression”) before retreating ( “Those blue hours, those blue hours, those blue hours, that blue shift”). Krule delves deep here, beginning with the direct admission “I think we might be bipolar” in “Biscuit Town”. “Krule’s attraction to all things azure has remained a signature of his artistry and fully embedded in his lyrics”Īs a symbol, the colour blue presents a deluge of negative connotations, from sadness and depression to the general plague of mental illness. But interestingly, Krule finds himself more immersed in this “Blue Wave” on The Ooz than ever, with the title leading to repeated thematic allusions – from the imagery of water (oceans, seas) to the celestial (Venus, the moon). Outside of music, Krule has namechecked David Lynch as a major influence in recent profiles in the New York Timesand Pitchfork – a filmmaker who is similarly captivated by the colour, repeatedly using it as a visual symbol in his oeuvre (see: Blue Velvet, the blue box in Mulholland Drive, or the blue rose in Twin Peaks).ĭuring his less-than-a-decade in the public eye, Krule’s attraction to all things azure has remained a signature of his artistry and fully embedded in his lyrics, highlighted first in early cut “Portrait in Black and Blue” off his first self-titled EP to 6 Feet’s standout “Baby Blue” and even a recent collaboration with Mount Kimbie (“Blue Train Lines”).
Throughout popular music, blue has also proved a consistent muse for countless artists – as showcased in seminal works by Joni Mitchell (1971’s Blue) and Miles Davis (1959’s Kind of Blue), to Weezer's ‘Blue Album’ ( Weezer). It’s a wave of physicality coming toward the people.” “It casts a blue over myself, and it’s a wave of music. During his ascent to the mainstream in 2013, which earned him widespread critical praise from the likes of Beyonce and Frank Ocean, Krule referred to his unique sonic amalgam – a fusion of jazz, punk, and calypso influences – as ‘Blue Wave’, telling MTV News that he was in his “blue period”, alluding to a similarity between his music’s melancholic shading and that of Picasso’s, whose famed affinity for the colour lasted only a few short years at the turn of the 20th century, and was initially spurred by the death of a close friend. But one thing remains constant in the palette of King Krule more than any other: a prolonged, career fixation with the colour blue.
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