No 'Kid'-ding, this album is fantastic

Kid Dakota (aka Darren Jackson) is the latest incarnation of Buddy Holly, the lanky white kid with black spectacles and an inability to escape himself. From the cards he has laid out for us, it doesn't appear that Jackson has had a very fun time with his life so far. Like so many others, he has embraced the proverbial hellhound on his trail as a viable muse. The songs on So Pretty seemingly lay out a well-bred character, erudite and snobby, fighting against and amongst lower-class issues.\nJackson and bandmate/drummer Christopher McGuire lean toward an experimental attitude of indie-rock. That particular genre of music has been weighed down by redundancy, which has made the lo-fi, guitar-based approach seem formulaic and highly stylized. \nKid Dakota is indie merely by coincidence; in lieu of big dollars for the recording process the band resorts to ad-hoc ideas (such as ice-cube-tray percussion). There is also quite a bit of double tracking of Jackson's vocals, which cements the Holly correlation by giving the album a "Words of Love"-like weirdness. \nThe key to the success of So Pretty, though, is the interplay between Jackson's words and his guitar. He plays a mock rhythm/lead style, never totally giving over to one or the other. His lyrics require some deciphering and hide somewhat literary pretensions.\n"Jesse and I were not looking so pretty / we hadn't been well in a while / we ran out of cash and we ran out of pity / our demeanor lacked what you call style," Jackson sings on the title track, presenting himself at once like an Oscar Wilde dandy and a troubled youth. Later in the song when he sings, "I'm scrapin' bags and double boilin' cottons / I'm looking around for my rig," the problem is clear.\nSo Pretty is a sign of the times, educated and prepared in all the right ways and having nothing to do with that education. Really, Jackson seems to be discovering what those in the lower classes have known for years: problems beget problems. Kid Dakota's debut album follows him down this trail, from inception to recovery.