Keisha Buckland

Live review from Swiftly Rising:
1. Dreams
2. Crush
3. Hindsight
4. Standard Girlfriend
5. Locomotive
6. Fighting the ocean
7. Ammonite

The second performer was 17 year old Keisha Buckland who at the time of performance was just opening up her IB results.

“They were not what I was expecting …. Which means I’ll just have to work harder on music”.

Naturally she didn’t reveal her score to her adoring fans, but few can deny that she already works very hard on her music. Her songs, lyrically and musically complex past her age, are emblematic of a new style of alternative indie-pop that’s really only been around since 2020. Influenced heavily by country, pop with lashings of musical theatre and poetic self-expression, the style that Keisha performs with is a clear representation of the music and media her generation consumed.

Taylor Swift, naturally, was listed as an influence, as was Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter; I also personally feel some Mitski and Rebecca Sugar vibes which would make sense with the influence of Adventure Time and Steven Universe on Gen Z and older Gen A culture. The high amount of Musical Theatre influence, in the lyrical and musical structure and performance style surprised me until I remembered that many now-famous singer-songwriters like Olivia Rodrigo actually came from Musical Theatre backgrounds. Not to mention that musical movies have been coming back into vogue, and some shows like Dear Evan Hansen, Heathers, Hamilton and Mean Girls are household names with younger generations.

I don’t even think there’s a name for it yet (Quirk Pop, I’ve written down in capital letters, inspired by the self-description of every Gen Z person as ‘quirky’ but I’m open to suggestions).

Why all this speculative preamble though? Because I think Keisha has something really going for her but it’s important to figure out what exactly that is and where she can go from there. Her style of music is established yes, to an extent, but not as much as classic rock which Vaun, for instance, writes in. Her themes are pretty standard for songwriters of her age, her opening songs Dreams, Crush and Hindsight need no further explanation, yet the lyrics – humorous, slightly self-deprecating combined with a generally upbeat cottage-core atmosphere, performed with an emotional theatrical half-singing, half-recitational style separates Keisha from mainstream performers. And despite her grades perhaps not being as good as she expected, she’s clearly passionate about the subjects she cares about – English Literature she mentioned several times, even with one song Locomotive being based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. She even has a song called Ammonite which apparently is a type of fossil – she told us that anyway, I had to google it.

Her lines don’t always match with the music, and the music doesn’t always match the lines – they interact in interesting ways; sometimes the lyrics go over the musical phrase, sometimes the music decides to jump up and down. How, for instance, do you fit the lines from Dreams “I just wanna be pretty and smart and mentally stable / Show people my art and under the table my hands sit in my lap instead of picking at my nails” into a normal song form? The lines barely have the same number of syllables! Sometimes, the music is there to create a more interesting atmosphere for the story, Ammonite for instance feels like a waltz or a lullabye in the ocean, which fits with the flowing emotional break-up narrative of the song.

Ultimately everything feels like a chaotic train of thought coming straight out of the performer’s mind which is exactly what the intention is. She admits this, naturally, saying that when writing and performing “It is inevitable for some of yourself to bleed into it”.

Keisha’s music can’t yet be described as incredibly mature. A lot of her lyrics and music still feels a bit overly free, her themes a little expected. But that’s ok – her songs are about growing up, not about being grown. Everyone ultimately matures and alongside personal maturity, so does their craft. Keisha’s hit the ground running despite her insecurities and with this much talent, there’s nowhere to go but up.
– Cyril Ma


Live review from 20th Anniversary Festival Day 1 星期五:

1. Paradise
2. ⁠you made your bed now lie in mine
3. ⁠Are Your Parents Home
4. ⁠Something
5. ⁠The Poet
6. ⁠Suddenly I See by K.T. Tunstall (cover)
7. ⁠Ammonite

Cutting a graceful onstage presence in her pretty green summer dress, Keisha both looks and sounds beyond her mere 17 years, such is her confidence and charisma. She explains that the mainly original set (there’s one cover) is like chapters in a relationship, the happy beginning, developing into a stable mid-section where you discover more about each other, before everything breaks down and self-destructs.

And while it’s obvious she is a huge Taylor Swift fan (she refers to her hero several times, even mentioning that her new album was out that day), her music is all her own. First things first – Keisha has a great voice, with the control and power or an older, more seasoned performer, making her all the more beguiling.

Accompanied only by her guitar (which sounded a little over trebly to this reviewer’s ears and could do with upgrading), she runs through her set, explaining each track in turn.
While she’s not rewriting the pop-folk songbook, I got the distinct impression that doesn’t really matter when you have this much talent. It takes real ability to entertain a whole room of music lovers. What was I doing at 17? Sulking in my bedroom playing ‘The Legend of Zelda’ probably!

For sure she’s a little underdeveloped, with occasionally predictable chord sequences, and mainly simple strumming, but that’s to be expected, and I’d love to catch her in five years or so. Lyrically she’s frequently biting and clever, with one track titled ‘You Made your Bed Now lie in Mine’. Again, precocious stuff from such a young woman.

Her equally charming sister joined her for the one cover, a run-through of K.T. Tunstall’s ’Suddenly I See’, which took a few moments to steady itself before hitting its stride, but otherwise this was an impressive set from a young artist exuding star appeal. Put it this way: if she was on America’s Got Talent I’m 100% sure she would get four ‘yeses’!
Dan Creffield


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