Kaia Kater’s follow-up to her strong 2014 debut disc Sorrow Bound fulfills that album’s promise and more. The African-Canadian banjo player, singer and songwriter has delivered a personal and social manifesto on Nine Pin.
In the tradition of Carolina Chocolate Drops, Kater brings a new perspective to the banjo as an African-rooted instrument and to Appalachian music as also partially African-rooted. She explores her personal roots as well as the viability of this music to speak to contemporary issues, and finds enlightenment on all fronts.
It’s all the more impressive because although the songs came together over a couple of years of touring behind Sorrow Bound, Kater recorded the 15 tracks on Nine Pin in one day in the studio. The result is a focused and living performance of traditional tunes and songs and a dozen or so originals.
A couple of the songs, “Rising Down” and “Paradise Fell” were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Here’s a live performance video of the former.
The songs by and large are somber meditations on personal and racial relations in America. “Harlem’s Little Blackbird” seems deeply personal while drawing on deeply felt history. Opening track “Saint Elizabeth” is a barrage of imagery, much of it unsettling. But joy is reflected too, in the form of a couple of instrumental interludes and some full-length trad tunes, “FIne Times At Our House” and “Hangman’s Reel.” She stays in touch with her Quebecois roots with the Francophone “Petit Chagrin.”
The arrangements and production, by noted Canadian Chris Bartos, are minimalist but do include some guest musicians on occasional electric guitar and horn charts. But mostly it’s Kater and her banjo and her startling low tenor vocals – which on the title song are unaccompanied but for Quebec-style foot percussion. This is an album of the year for 2016, and now everyone knows that Kaia Kater is an artist to watch.
(Kingswood, 2016)
