The Kinnie Starr you already know: MC-singer-poet-actress-beatnik
- musicmaker - who was born in Calgary, became her adult self in Vancouver,
and was raised on heavy doses of Zeppelin, Sade and De La Soul's Daisy
Age.... Discovered she could kick it live one night in NYC (1993), when
an open mic called, and the crowd carried her through three blazing
encores ("edgy... enchanting," said the New Yorker).... Tidy (Canada
1996; U.S.A. 1997) was the first of Starr's four records - her new one
is called Anything, but we'll get there in a minute - which drew critical
acclaim from all corners. "An artistic, feminist, angry, well-articulated
rant of the highest order," said allmusic.com; "raw, funny and definitely
an original," added the Globe and Mail....
Starr signed with Mercury/Island/Def Jam in 1997, but Seagram's took
over that group three years later, and Kinnie got lost when her music
took a back seat to big whiskey's bottom line.... So she asked for
her freedom, got it, and made Tune-Up (2000)… Kinnie was a lead player
in the alt-indie film Down and Out with the Dolls (filmed in 2001),
directed by Kurt Voss (of Sugar Town fame).... Two years later, she
lived and worked in Las Vegas, singing for Zumanity, Cirque du Soleil's
controversial cabaret production.... and she found a new, comfortable
home at MapleMusic Recordings releasing Sun Again in 2003- plus a publishing
deal with Last Gang Publishing and their partner company Olé, … the
same year Kinnie earned a Juno nomination for Best New Artist.... Also
in 2003, Starr co-wrote Carmen Rizzo's Beso, a song for the soundtrack
of the acclaimed film Thirteen... In 2004, U.K. production wizards Hybrid
and Blackwatch cut body-rocking club remixes of Starr's song Alright
(Release Records), a Sun Again stand-out.... She performed at the 2005
National Aboriginal Achievement Awards… Kinnie has toured Japan, the
U.K., the U.S.A. and Canada in the past five years - which brings us
up to speed with the here and now....
The Kinnie Starr you'll meet on Anything: For starters, the title
is her stock answer to a question that she hears all the time: "So,
uh, what does your music sound like?" (For the record: hip hop, rock,
folk, R&B, electronica... anything.)... "You don't appreciate / No room
to debate / My eyes don't dilate / Your words have no weight," Starr
spits on Step Back, Anything's opening song. It's a bluesy blast-off,
embossed with the spirit of self-determination that has defined her
career. "A lot of people who love hip hop love what I do, because I'm
doing my own shit," she says. "I try to uphold the old-school MC mentality
when I'm on stage - taking the crowd along with me, rather than just
playing songs at them. That's more like a rock 'n' roll mentality, to
just slam the songs out. You know, 'Fuck you! Later.' I'm first and
foremost an MC."... Step Back is a battle track, but every song afterwards
is about Starr's family and private life. Wind In Your Sails is a lyrical
riff on a photograph of her parents when they were near her age ("I
will try to be a much better friend, a friend to you / I will try to
see in you the beauty in the things you do, see the beauty that is you");
Not Enough is "about [my] niece and nephew being born, and wondering
if the world will be good enough for them"; Up In Smoke chronicles a
cousin's misadventures with a nameless West Coast record label ("The
whole thing can go up in smoke / And it can make you sink or help you
float")....
The creative core behind Anything is Kinnie, who wrote all of its
complex and shape-shifting toons, and John Raham, the drum thunder in
Kinnie's live band. The pair recorded and produced the album at
Ogre studios in Vancouver BC throughout 2005. Tegan and Sara's Tegan
Quinn contributes vocals to the single La Le La La, which was mixed
by Howard Redekopp (New Pornographers, A.C. Newman, 54-40).... Vic Florencia
mixed Anything's title track, which is also a single.... "I'm very stoked
to be with MapleMusic. Kim Cooke has been watching and supporting my
career since I started. As soon as he was able to do something, he stepped
to the plate," Kinnie says. "I don't expect to sell a billion records,
but the fact that I'm working with people who believe in me - I may
sound cheesy, but it really does make me feel good."...
But wait, there's more: Starr has another body of work in progress,
a collection of four-track songs that she's self-producing on a well-used,
much-loved Tascam 564. "They're quite sparse, sort of Joni Mitchell-ish,
but they're not really folk songs, they're tipped towards jazz and old-school
Motown ballads." She has twenty songs in progress, and hopes to release
ten - when they're ready.... Kinnie has started writing for the native
publication Spirit Magazine, and recently interviewed Daniel Lanois
for its upcoming spring issue.... "I write a lot, and very quickly these
days, off the seat of my pants," she adds. "If I'm driving I'll pull
over, or I'll take my sketchbook out and put in on my lap while I drive
if I can't pull over."
Anything to get the words out…
For more information, please contact:
Mavis Harris / MapleMusic
Recordings
Tel: 416.961.1040
x.267
mavis.harris@maplemusicrecordings.com
MapleMusic Recordings
www.maplemusicrecordings.com
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2006 Violet Inch Records. All rights reserved.
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