The Emancipation Of Kesha Rose has been both an exhilarating and deeply horrifying experience. And, frankly, the current state of a Kesha Komeback seems a bit dubious at the moment.
But! Did you know? A new Kesha song already exists on the Internet…for free. Really.
Back in August, Canadian musician/filmmaker Spookey Ruben released a “random collection of rare bits and unavailable B-sides” called Welsh Rarebits. And, casually sitting at the very end of the collection is a song written and performed entirely by Kesha, called “Lover” — and it sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard from the artist formerly known as K-E-dollar sign-HA.
The 5-minute track lurches forward on top of a fuzzy lo-fi beat and stabs of electro, as the songstress ditches the pop formula almost entirely, navigating instead into experimental electronica/trip-hop territory — almost like something from Portishead or Massive Attack.
“Lover, you’ve already ripped me apart/You’ve already broken my heart/What would it take to make you walk away?” she sadly croons against layers of gritty electronic pulsations and distant moans. At times, her voice gets swallowed by glitchy robotics — and yet, it still feels more raw than any of her more polished album material as of late.
Whether this is representative of the direction Kesha was pursuing before Dr. Luke‘s alleged interference with her career or just a discard from a session that neither party was particularly pleased with, it’s yet another show of Kesha’s underappreciated versatility as an artist — and a pretty haunting listen.