With scene-chewing turns in crazy/beautiful and Crossroads, not to mention a wistful ballad (“Wastin’ My Time”) on the mostly-rap 8 Mile soundtrack, budding actress/songstress Taryn Manning isn’t wasting any time. Taryn teamed up with her break-beat-biting brother Kellin to form Boomkat, a genre-defying duo whose debut, Boomkatalog One, mixes old-school hip-hop beats, guitars and retro sounds with Taryn’s sneer of a vocal. While his sister aims for Gwen Stefani’s playful versatility, Kellin draws on Beatles-esque chord progressions and mellotron sounds that bring to mind other acts (Len, Nelly Furtado) who have previously vied to fill the equivocal space between pop and hip-hop. A perfect example of this sort of fervor is “Now Understand This,” in which Taryn sings “The Top 40 had to sort me into a brand new category.” Truth is, the Manning siblings would be lucky to be one-hit wonders; it’s been half a decade since radio programmers have taken a noticeable gamble on anything. If nothing else, the life-affirming Boomkatalog One, the recording of which seems to have been a dream-come-true in and of itself, is a consistent and hook-laden attempt to get noticed.
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