Kenny Baqoul - 'Indoor Pool'

Review By Matt Wong & Staff

Locked in his studio with the world tuned out and a GameCube turned on, Kenny Baquol explores his wide spectrum of thoughts, issues, and experiences in his music and writing. Kenny has written and produced 4 different albums of 4 different genres, influenced by experimental rock and hard rock over the course of a year and a half. A great way to get acquainted with Kenny Baquol's sound and creativity is to take a dive into "Indoor Pool."

“Indoor Pool” begins with a bright, rhythmic strumming part on electric guitar with ride cymbal keeping time. The upbeat instrumentation gradually thickens, first adding kick drum, and a thumping, melodic bass part, followed by full drums, and an electric guitar double of the existing strumming part. The dynamics and intensity of the arrangement scale back for the first verse, which introduces Baquol’s natural, chill vocals.

The instrumentation remains the same on the verse, but in place of the rhythmic guitar parts from the intro, a more vocal sounding guitar part is played with wah wah giving a nice spacey timbre. Upon arriving at the chorus, the song’s groove uplifts to highly staccato hits that gives the melody a punch before returning the original groove for another verse.

As the song moves forward, the orchestration with new arpeggiations adds to the the highly punctuated groove breaking it up with a colorful guitar solo before the song ends with one final chorus. Listen on Soundcloud.

The lyrics behind “Indoor Pool” help tell the story behind Baquol’s Hotel Kiwi concept album in which the main character spends a night in a very mysterious, yet alluring hotel. With each song representing a room in the hotel, “Indoor Pool,” with lyrics such as, “I wonder what is really left to say after you’ve pulled me under,” is the point in the story where the character is floating aimlessly and is submerged both literally in a pool, and metaphorically in their thoughts.

“Indoor Pool” by Kenny Baquol is a fantastic piece of musical storytelling. Through Baquol’s excellent songwriting and performance, listener’s will be able to envision themselves at the poolside with the main character. Aided by a stellar arrangement, the setting and vibe of the story is experienced through the song’s music. Listener’s will want to check out the rest of Hotel Kiwi after emerging from the impressive “Indoor Pool.”

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