w/ Spender
Celebrating the release of her latest full length LP, Danielle Caruana AKA Mama Kin, graced the Black bear Lodge with her melodious presence along with the vibrant Spender.
From just looking at the 6-foot plus Spender, I would have
picked him for the type of music he performed tonight. I am definitely
ok with being proven wrong. I have always admired people who can work
with loops to create something extraordinary, and Spender created all of
his material in such a way that made it fascinating to not only watch
but also listen to. The song “Never Again” was such an intense song that
utilised guitar loops, vocal loops and saxophone loops. All of his
songs had such dense layering with multiple harmonies layered on top of
each other to create his backing track. A pretty rad artist.
Mama Kin has such a presence about her. Her voice has such a
beautifully natural tone and vibrato and is seemingly so effortless. She
performed the majority of songs her latest LP The Magician’s Daughter as well as some track from her 2010 release Beat and Holler.
She opened with “Cherokee Boy” a rather depressing way to begin, yet at
the same time the perfect way. It was a strange experience. She moved
quickly onto her more up tempo tunes including “Rescue” a rather rad
song about nod needing rescuing like the princesses in the fairy tails.
She played “To My Table”, “Tore My Heart Out” and “My Friend” from
her previous release as well as other well loved songs from her
collection. But it was how she presented her latest material that really
impressive. If anything, I feel she talks too much between songs, and
they could have played more music if there hadn’t had been so much idle
chatter, but that’s why we go to gigs right, to get the whole package.
Otherwise we’d all just sit in our small dark rooms and listen to CDs
every night.
The highlight of the set was definitely one of her new songs “I’ll Be
Ready”. The harmonies created were just exquisite! The type of music
where you want the chorus to go on and on and never end. This is pretty
much what happened. The repeated the chorus for what seemed an age, and
it was the best thing ever.
Mama Kin certainly is a unique performer embracing and being
completely true to what she wants to achieve as an artist. Her latest
record The Magician’s Daughter is out now.
