Kassie Krut began coming to life even before Palm was laid to rest, with the latter’s now-former members Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert beginning to connect the disconnects in frayed electronic pop through a string of singles tracing back to 2020. Matt Anderegg of Body Meat and Mothers would then join them in 2022, which was a curious mark in the timeline, given it coincided with the Philly experimental art-rockers’ peak release in their final album, the colorful mind-twist Nicks and Grazes. Perhaps they had brought that band’s sound as far as it could go, which makes the challenge of dismantling sonic spaces on Kassie Krut’s self-titled debut EP a natural yet distinctly inverse progression from its remnants.

As with “Reckless”, the solid six-song listen’s feral opening track and statement of purpose in purveying a new form of freakiness, Kassie Krut is at its core a bright, disorienting pop experience built around minimalistic synth beats exploding club-bursting feedback messily through asymmetrical patterns. What transmits is an extended play that is instantaneously promising first proper taste of a singular sound coming into being, touching on DIY noise-pop, dub, industrial techno, and electro-punk influences yet arriving at a point of no concrete comparison with today’s sonic field.

Alpert’s voice offers to its synthetic chaos a rich, sugary coating that sweetens static with temptational desires on the standout “United”, ensuring any of its abrasive ingredients go down easy. Even without her emerging from its heat friction, the NutriBullet noise serving of a track like “Espresso” doubles as a jolting shot to curb any lingering aftertaste from this past summer’s light roast brew of it. “Gonna get down / Gonna get on top,” Alpert sings during the EP’s final moments on “Blood”. With their debut, she and Kassie Krut are climbing their way up there, leaving glittered fingernail marks in the skin along the way.

Highlights: “Reckless”, “United”, “Blood”

Kassie Krut’s Kassie Krut is available now on Fire Talk.

Buy | Stream