The Seventeen

This album catches Kieskagato at the height of its post-Radiohead phase, as Dave Jorgensen's jazz influenced songwriting gels with Josh Vasby's uncanny grunge sensabilities to form a very unique blend. On You Are The One Who Can, we hear the same harmonized trumpet layering that would later help propel Blind Pilot's Three Rounds And A Sound to commercial success, juxtaposed with some genuinely gritty and hard rocking guitar work from Vasby and Schultz.

Kieskagato [Kee ska got oh] formed in the mid 1990’s in Madison, Wisconsin and moved to Portland, Oregon in the summer of 2000. Changing dramatically over the years in both name (originally called Rm. 101) and musical style, Kieskagato has morphed from a Radiohead and Built to Spill influenced indie-rock band into an ambiguous musical anomaly that combines everything from free jazz to hardcore rock, drawing equally from Charles Mingus, Mike Patton, Kurt Cobain, and Tortoise. Over the course of touring, recording, and composing, highlights have included opening for notable acts Crooked Fingers, Rogue Wave, Archer Prewitt, and Pete Yorn, as well as making two records with recording industry legend Larry Crane. During 2005, current Kieskagato members Josh Vasby (lead vocals, guitar, trumpet), Adam Schultz (bass, trumpet, percussion), Bryan Fairfield (drums, backup vocals, percussion), and David Jorgensen (Rhodes piano, organ, trumpet) completed 2 successful national tours, released a unique EP featuring remixes and rearrangements of classic Kieskagato material, and enjoyed a 3 month weekly residency at a favorite Portland club. The band is currently sequestered in its garage/studio preparing to record its next release in late summer.

"It should come as no surprise that a band whose name grafts the Russian and Spanish name for "cat" together can take components of jazz, soul and pop and conjoin them with such satisfying results. On their second album, You are The One Who Can, Kieskagato may blend together several musical genres, but the resulting sound is all their own. What makes the band so appealing is that it's never clear where the songs are going. For example, the opener "Omaha" is a breezy number buoyed by singer Josh Vasby's endearing drag that starts with a soulful groove then merges into a weaving trumpet solo and later morphs into a trippy jam. Meanwhile, the smooth and textured "See You At The Meeting" climaxes with an instrumental workout, "On Solid Ground" builds into a rocker and "Til You Wake Up" is a spacy jazz tinged number. You, Are The One, Who Can is a 10-track album of such a vast sonic scale that it is hard to classify; unpredictable, inventive, and unique, it is one of the most captivating releases in recent memory."
- Alex Green for Amplifier Magazine