Premiere: Kiev, ‘Willing Eyes’

Kevin Bronson on July 18th, 2019

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Kiev (on tour earlier this year in Scotland)

Earlier this year, the music world was re-introduced to Kiev, the Orange County-bred prog-/post-/psych-rockers who released their debut album in 2013 and then went quiet, content to live their lives and make music on their own terms. [See Kiev: The return of the band what went away.]

This week, after dates supporting Foals in both the U.S. and Europe, Kiev releases its first music since that album, “Falling Bough Wisdom Teeth.” It’s the single “Willing Eyes,” an expansive 5 1/2-minute soundscape steeped in drama and cinematic splendor. The song, from a forthcoming series of singles Kiev will release intermittently, was recorded and produced by the band at their warehouse.

“There have been multiple waves of songwriting — waves of changes in general really — that have come and gone since the release of our first full length,” says singer-guitarist Robert Brinkerhoff, joined in the band by multi-instrumentalist Andy Stavas, percussionist Brandon Corn and bassist Derek Poulsen. “It wasn’t until recently, after hitting the road amidst a lull between the waves, that it really started to make sense to let people in and share work from each of the different eras of writing. With a little distance and time, we found a lot of what we had created in the past was still resonating and in many ways created an arc that links up nicely to where we’re at today.

“We aren’t planning on releasing tracks chronologically but ‘Willing Eyes’ is coincidentally one of the oldest seeds that we had planted. We just naturally gravitated towards sharing it first without overthinking it. Overthinking, we’re pretty sure, is the old bastard of an habit that probably kept us from sharing these things a long time ago.”

Here’s to not overthinking, just listening.

||| Stream: “Willing Eyes”