The Kick
BIOGRAPHY
You’ve heard Charlie Ziman before, but maybe you haven’t heard of him.
He’s the producer, mixer and co-writer behind some of Malcolm Todd’s biggest hits, including “Earrings,” the breakout single that earned the young rising star’s first #1 on the global Spotify chart. It may be just a bit too early to declare, but Ziman & Malcolm Todd’s music is quickly becoming the defining sound of the late 2020s. The Kick’s upcoming debut album 1+1 however, sees Ziman and his other best friend, Nathan Tsunoda, letting their inspirations and ideas run wild.
Ziman and Tsunoda grew up and reside in Sunny West LA, and their musical influences are undeniably Californian. From Sublime to Earth, Wind & Fire, Beach House to Tame Impala, if you are from the West Coast, the sound of psychedelic surf rock fills the wide boulevards and tucked away cul-de-sacs. For the Kick, Ziman dials down the poppier, more polished style he favors for his works with Malcolm, sprinkles in the spirit of garage punk and just enough of California’s freshness, in order to let the electro-pop flares shine. The result is a sound adjacent to the current indie sleaze revival blooming in New York City; but with their breezy guitar riffs, spacey distortions and a California-certified psych rock groove, The Kick brings a freshness to the griminess of indie sleaze.
“We never really meant to dig into the whole indie sleaze thing,” said Ziman, “I’m also not in New York. I think people are actually having a lot of fun there, (indie sleaze) is a fun genre of music. Like any genre, there’s a lot of people trying to do exactly the thing that The Strokes and other artists did 20 years ago; to that I ask, why? I think you should do that and put a twist on it, and mesh it into your own thing.”
The album’s lead single, “Wish 4” shows off Ziman and Tsunoda’s production and composition chops by subtly giving nods to some of the duos’ inspirations. The Casablancas-style distorted vocal is dressed with a minimally reverbed drum beat and sunny guitar riffs. Contrasting the brightness on the first part of the track, “Wish 4” eventually descends into a whirlwind breakdown. Done by putting the entire track with all its instruments through a single modulation tool, the song’s extended outro/bridge becomes crunchy, trippy, or as Ziman would call it, “Intergalatic.”
Like what the album title implied, there’s always something extra and additional to each track, a sense of wonder and curiosity that may not have permission to chart, but a permission to chill. You can feel them having fun on 1+1. Distorted vocals, elongated bridges and breakdowns, guitar solos that can only be the products of post-4am wild thoughts… “Oh my gosh, I get the sparks from everything,” said Ziman, “I get the sparks from… I don’t know, looking at a tree. Literally being near another human being can be very inspirational, or we go see a movie or something. Sometimes we would just leave the studio and thrive off the feeling of wanting to go back to the studio haha.”
Jokingly, Ziman compares his collaboration with Malcolm Todd as the times when “the Bat-Signal is on.” For now, when the Bat-Signal is off, Ziman and Tsunoda are simply having fun. “I mean, I really want to have some songs that can be someone’s favorite song,” Ziman remarked on the album, “I think for Nathan too. It’s the best we can do, and we really pay a lot of attention to details in every song on this project. Hopefully, the record will become a classic in 20 years… These are my hopes. It’s really just the best I can do at this moment, and I’m proud of it.”