LISTEN AND SHARE “GRENADES” HERE
GRENADES OUT OCTOBER 26 VIA SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS / ACRONYM RECORDS
PRE-ORDER GRENADES HERE
TOUR DATES CONTINUE OCTOBER 19
“Kater’s album speaks to the tensions of being between so many places…being in between times.” - NOW Toronto
“...One of the most remarkable Canadian folk records in some time...Kater's music is somehow ancient and brand new at the same time.” -Tom Power, CBC Radio
"...plaintive, mesmerizing...writes and performs with the skill of a folk-circuit veteran..."
-Rolling Stone
"Where bluegrass meets Nina Simone" - The Guardian
"You want some authenticity in your folk music or bluegrass – I give you Kaia Kater."
- No Depression
PHOTO CREDIT : Raez Argulla // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
“I certainly feel like our history walks around with us every day,” Kaia Kater notes of her new single, “Grenades”. She wrote the title track from her upcoming LP “by trying to imagine myself as my dad, when he was a little boy, seeing this all happen."
Kaia grew up between two worlds: one her family’s deep ties to the Canadian folk music scene; the other the years she spent soaking up Appalachian music in West Virginia. Her father grew up in Grenada, fleeing to Canada in 1986 as part of a student exchange young speakers program, after the U.S. invasion. His voice can be heard recounting those events during the album's interludes — a way for Kaia to tie her present with his past, in order to understand our current global climate of war, unease, immigration, and displacement.
“Grenades” is a “play on Grenada,” Kaia tells SOCAN Magazine. “There were no grenades dropped in Grenada, it has nothing to do with that, [it’s] this idea about explosion and war. I wanted to describe the invasion from my father’s perspective as a child. The first line: ‘Surf the waves now, taste the metal on your tongue / March the dogs of war into the sun.’ It’s the idea of this beautiful, incredibly fertile island and then, just like, guns and metal and war, and what that does to a child.”
LISTEN AND SHARE “GRENADES” HERE
On Grenades, set for release on October 26 in partnership with acronym Records in Canada and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings world wide, Kater draws on her diverse influences in Quebec, the Caribbean, and Appalachia, bringing them together to present an exciting musical direction. Known for her prowess as a songwriter and tradition bearer who performs with “the skill of a folk-circuit veteran” (Rolling Stone), Grenadian-Canadian artist Kaia Kater took a decidedly different direction for Grenades. What started out as a search to discover the roots of her identity became a physical and emotional exploration of history, in particular her paternal ancestry, and has led to bold new heights of imagination and creative expression.
Grenades is the lore of lives recounted. As Kaia describes it in the album’s line notes: “It is my grandmother Myra’s glory, it is my father Deno’s struggle, it is my march from the past into the present. Concentric circles of song spin around, lurching the listener backward into the cargo bed of a pick-up truck in the mountainous rainforests of Grenada on 13th March 1979. They pull you by the ear and plant you in the middle of helicopter gunfire during two months of terror in 1983. You are swept by the easterly wind and settled gently in the back row of a Boeing 737 at the exact moment when a young man decides to walk off a plane into the frozen Canadian winter. You sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to the words he speaks to me, his daughter, a quarter of a century later.”
WATCH AND SHARE “NEW COLOSSUS”HERE
PURCHASE / STREAM “NEW COLOSSUS” HERE
Born in Montreal, raised in Quebec and Manitoba, and now based in Toronto, Kaia studied Appalachian music in West Virginia and dove deep into old-time banjo music on her previous releases, including 2016's award-winning Nine Pin. For Grenades, she chose to lean into a wider array of sounds and styles, in order to convey a wider array of emotions and topics, most notably her paternal ancestry.
Kaia started her career early, crafting her first EP Old Soul (2013) when she was just out of high school. Since then, she’s gone on to release two more albums, Sorrow Bound (2015) and Nine Pin (2016). Her most recent album weaves between hard-hitting songs that touch on social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement and more personal narratives speaking to life and love in the digital age. Nine Pin won a Canadian Folk Music Award, a Stingray Rising Star Award, and sent Kaia on an 18-month touring journey from Ireland to Iowa, including stops at The Kennedy Center, Hillside Festival and London's O2 Shepherd's Bush.
Hot off the heels of a string of summer festival performances, including Edmonton Folk Festival, Kaia will be on the road in North America this fall to support the new album. Watch for more Canadian tour dates to be announced shortly.
PRE-ORDER GRENADES HERE
GRENADES TRACKLIST
New Colossus
Heavenly Track
Canyonland
(Power! Power! Power!)
La Misere
Meridian Ground
Starry Day
(Death of a Dream)
Grenades
Hydrants
Everly
The Right One
(Off The Plane)
Poets Be Buried
UPCOMING TOUR DATES
Oct 19 - Black Mountain, NC - LEAF Festival
Nov 1 - Frederick, MD - Weinberg Center For The Arts
Nov 2 - Baltimore, MD - Creative Alliance
Nov 3 - Arden, DE - Arden Gild Hall
Nov 14 - Lewisburg, PA - Weis Center For The Performing Arts
Nov 17 - Wakefield, QC - The Black Sheep Inn
Nov 20 - Toronto, ON - Rivoli
Nov 25 - Halifax, NS - The Carleton
Nov 30 - Albany, NY - Massry Center For The Arts
Dec 1 - Philadelphia, PA - Philadelphia Folksong Society
KAIA KATER ONLINE
WEBSITE
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
ABOUT ACRONYM RECORDS
Re-launched in 2017, acronym records is a Toronto-based full service Independent Record Label and is part of the MDM Recordings Inc. family of companies, founded by Mike Denney. It is run day to day by Head of Creative/Managing Partner Tony Tarleton and supported by the amazing team of MDM. Other artists on the acronym roster include Megan Nash, Christina Martin and Mikhail Laxton with more artists to be announced soon. Canadian distribution for acronym/MDM is via Universal Music Canada, ABC Music in Australia and rest of the world via FUGA.