“I think I just needed to understand that there was hope even in really terrible situations… How do I find hope? … How do I find medicine from what seems like only poison?”
Kaïa Kater
There’s been a resurgence of folk/Americana music lately, and I’m here for it. The vibe is all about inclusivity and sharing stories that are healing and empowering while amplifying voices that are often not heard.
I recently spoke with Indie/Folk artist Kaïa Kater, who is originally from Montreal and currently based in New York. Her latest album Strange Medicine (which will be released on May 17) is an intimate exploration of anger, desolation, and hope.
In her latest single “In Montreal” (featuring Allison Russell), the hypnotic plucking of the banjo accompanied by her soft yet sardonic tone is heightened by delicately crafted lyrics. Reminiscent of singer/songwriters Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen. Her words are sparse but hold significant weight.
“And you call yourself a living death, but a daisy blooms beneath your concrete stairs.”
So you went to banjo camp as a kid… there were probably not that many young people interested in playing the banjo at that time, were there? You started really young, didn’t you?
Yeah, I started when I was like 11… I played the cello at the time, and music was an environment that I was always in. So picking up the banjo actually felt really natural, and I loved the sound of it and how it made me feel, and just how soothing it was. But I think that the thing that was harder for me was how to communicate that with my friend group, which felt so separate from my home life and my music life. It was more like how people saw the banjo, which was that it was like a white southern kind of grating instrument, which I can understand… especially when you’re young and you’re about to be a teenager. The last thing you want to do is stand out in any way… so it took me a little while to come out of my shell.
I think now folk and country are getting a lot more mainstream. It’s just so ironic…I’m not going to get into the whole Beyoncé thing or even the Tracy Chapman (popularity). Suddenly, women of color are now considered country. There were so many before, but now it’s becoming more and more popular. So, you see; your time has come. I find it’s a lot more open now.
I think you’re right, and it’s a lot cooler than it used to be. (We both laugh.)
I love how Brandi Carlisle has sort of opened this gate with Joni Mitchell and Allison Russell, and they’re all just coming out and connecting, helping each other and working together, and that makes me so happy. And you did a song “In Montreal” with Allison Russell, who I’m a very big fan of actually. So do you want to tell me about that collaboration?
Alli and I have known each other for like 10 if not 15 years. She’s about 10 years older than me, so she was always the person that I saw in the Canadian music scene. She was born and raised in Montreal. She speaks French, then moved across the country to Vancouver, and then she was part of this group called Poe girl and then later a group called birds of Chicago with her husband JT and then she fully went solo and so now she’s living in the states in Nashville. I knew her through most of those eras, and I think she represented longevity in the folk music scene and later the American roots music scene. This idea that you can have a family. You can have a really interesting life. She represented so much and then even beyond that like you can come out of trauma and have a life that you’re proud of and that you’re happy about and that’s creative. So, when I wrote “In Montreal”, which is a lot about depression and anxiety and some of the intense feelings that were happening in the winter of 2021 when the lockdowns were happening and I felt like I just couldn’t see anyone and I felt really isolated. I was listening to Alli’s records at the time, and so it just made sense that her message and general vibe like hope and joy and choosing that over some of the worst things humanly imaginable that can happen to somebody. It just made sense that I needed her voice on that. And then of course, overlaid with this idea that she really knows Montreal, like the spiral staircases that are so iconic to the city… so it just made sense, you know, to ask my friend and someone who inspires me to be on the record. The record is such a Montreal record.
This album seems like the most personal record you’ve made.
Yeah. This is ironic but I took a month off in March 2020 to write this record, and little did I know that I would be taking essentially two years off. So the record that I began writing in 2020, I basically scrapped most of that because the songs just didn’t feel at all relevant to what I was experiencing at that time anymore. I worked with Joe grass, who’s a prominent Montreal musician and producer. His studio was pretty close by so I would make a demo, take it to his place. We would work on it … so a lot of the process of writing this music and creating it was much slower than I was used to. And it was really nice because I could really think about what I was writing about and make the songs for me because I really had no idea. Am I going to release this album into the ether? Will anyone be touring? A lot of that was taken off the plate so it was cool to be a little more honest.
I like that. I can tell you made this album for you. Are you a Rick Rubin fan?
Yeah. I have his latest book.
When I was listening to the album, I remembered Rick Rubin when he talks about creating something that you would listen to that you would enjoy…Of course, people are going to end up liking it or connecting to it, but when you really like it, it kind of shows, and it’s more authentic.
I think the through-line is me drawing some kind of inspiration from either historical characters or fictional characters in order to make sense of how I was feeling. And I think a lot of that is because I just didn’t travel. I’m someone who, every other week, is on a plane going somewhere or in a car going somewhere. My life is very active and mobile, you know, and I’m kind of like floating above like going to a city, going to another city. And then all of a sudden I was at home for the first time in a really long time and so I think I had to travel in my mind. I had to seek wisdom and experience from different little pockets. And I think that’s what Strange Medicine is. Like all of these people were in difficult situations whether they be fictional, based on reality, historical fiction, or actual historical figures and like how did they figure their way out of it. How did the story end, you know? Is the story still going?
Watch the full interview below:
Kaïa has a series of US and Canadian dates coming up with a stop in Montreal on May 23 at La Sotterena.
Interview – Annette Aghazarian
Photo – Janice Reid
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