Alternative
NNA Tapes · 9 October 2026
The eight tracks on “Vapor” are called “itch”, “un”, “crying”, “beg”, “delay”, “clic”, “sen” and “meld”, all in lower case and none longer than three minutes forty-eight. The method explains the shape: Vicky Mettler, who signs as Kee Avil, put them out one by one across 2026 as she finished them, as a kind of sonic diary, and only gathered them into an album at the end. Her justification is that inspiration is like vapour, appearing and dissipating quickly, and that this way she does not have to think too far ahead.
It is the Montreal guitarist’s third album and the first not to appear on Constellation: “Crease” (March 2022) and “Spine” (May 2024) both came out on the hometown label, and “Vapor” arrives via NNA Tapes. The change coincides with a more closed way of working: production is by Mettler with Zachary Scholes, who also records and mixes, with mastering by Guy Hébert at Concrete Mastering. The cover is an image by Monse Muro over an art piece by Elisabeth Perrault.
The familiar material is all here: treated guitar, voice very close to the microphone and electronic production that keeps questioning what counts as melody and what as noise. “crying” and “beg” are the two faces of the operation. On “crying”, three thirty-four, the vocal line holds the centre and the electronics circle it without covering it; on “beg”, two forty-eight, the reverse happens and what is left is texture with a trace of a song inside. “meld”, which closes at three minutes nine, is where the balance is best struck, and it seems no accident that it was the last written.
The reservation comes from the method rather than the tracks. Eight pieces of between two minutes thirty-six and three forty-eight add up to twenty-four minutes fifty-five: no idea is given enough room to go anywhere, and the cohesion Mettler hoped would appear “naturally” at the end turns out to be a uniformity of tone rather than a journey. Anyone following her since “Spine” will hear the same voice with less architecture; anyone arriving now gets a short, well-made door, with the 2024 album waiting behind it. The support of the Canada Council for the Arts is listed in the credits, and it shows in a recording that is anything but makeshift.
Rating: 7.2/10
Text by Marçal Bonastre