The label of New York as a melting-pot may sound cliché these days, especially when it comes to music, but not when the ingredients in question are as disparate as dream pop and Peru. Malka, who just released their debut EP ‘The Constant State’ and is fronted by Peruvian-born, and nine-year-New-York-resident Darko Saric, brings its own flavor of shoegazed dream-pop to the seemingly over-populated table of noisy, melodic instrumentals, highlighted by vocal brilliance and unique lyrical alternation between Spanish and English. The record flows in a mystical airiness, its songs individually building in intensity throughout, choral guitars shooting for the heavens, seamless in their strumming, and the bass diggings towards an underworld unknown with its bulldozing, growling granularity. All creates a wonderfully ethereal environment over which the vocal harmonies of Saric, EJ DeCoske (guitars and synth), and David Ciauro (bass), can dance and meld. Whether dealing in pop-rock rhythms driven by drummer Mike Dawson, as on opener “A Flock of Crows,” or the tonal clarity and spatiality of the guitars, as on “For Now We Live,” and Spanish-sung closer, “Mirame,” ‘The Constant State’ explores sonic territories beyond any tangible landscape, which surely helps get past the this big apple’s crammed lifestyle. – JP Basileo
