Up Tops with Nat, part one: Kali Uchis

“Loner” by Kali Uchis | Last weekend I was in Cebu for a work trip, which also meant a chance to hang with Nat (you know her from this one) who promptly made me stay up early in the morning (we met at one and split at five) up the Tops Lookout. In between the usual deep-ish conversations we were discussing some of her new favorites, which were of a different genre. How to feel old: talk about artists kids these days like. Then again, the first time I heard of Kali Uchis is from her, never mind that she appeared on the new Gorillaz album and had one of her songs on the American Horror Story soundtrack. That song is “Sycamore Tree”, which sounds necessarily creepy, because she went for a child-like voice at the beginning, but the Colombian singer does channel a bit of Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse – without the anthemic tendencies – elsewhere. Take “Loner”, which does fit in to my sensibilities. And yet I, inevitably, missed her entirely. [NB]