KU?KA Plays to Her Strengths on ‘Can You Hear Me Dreaming?’

KU?KA – Can You Hear Me Dreaming?
LUCKYME

In collaborations with marquee artists like Flume and Vince Staples, KU?KA has proven indispensable. Rappers and fellow producers have played with her voice, high-pitched and malleable, like a bouncing ball—often adding texture to harsh electronic soundscapes.

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But ever since her 2021 debut album, Wrestling, she’s more assertively taken center stage. Her latest album, Can You Hear Me Dreaming?, like her first, is almost entirely self-produced and brimming with energy—even if it can’t fight the relative anonymity that comes with the territory of EDM-and-rap-adjacent electro-pop. On Can You Hear Me Dreaming?, KU?KA illuminates varied yet cohesive electronic textures with her bright vocals and club-ready melodies.

Can You Hear Me Dreaming? notably hits harder than KU?KA’s previous solo work, although she has previously sung over heavy, cutting-edge electronic beats in her many collabs with Flume. Narrated by KU?KA’s wife, Dillon Howl, the spoken-word “Communal Reverie” and “Gross Body” drip with formidable menace, though their momentum is cut short by their awkward respective placements in the tracklist. Highlight “Heaven” also takes a page out of Purity Ring’s book, marrying sinister rap beats with twee hooks. “Wedding” and “Cry Cry Cry” both bounce with weightless effervescence. 

KU?KA is in her element when locked in an airless, earworm-y pop melody against shiny and metallic futuristic beats that recall her best collaborative work. Can You Hear Me Dreaming? has that in droves. – GRADE: B

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