Kaia Kater

Kaia Kater is the most underrated great talent of last year. She writes sublime lyrics. On love and sex: "My broken oath is hanging from the dashboard face and you are waiting to reload".

A writer that can do that and this: "Away to the east of the isle where the median swells and they gut the fish The wharfmen sing, and beat the water" and this on the regime change of her father's Grenada, just as relevant now with Venezuela: "With his crowds of ten thousand, yeah they’ve already crowned him You can shout at the mountain but they’ve already crowned him With his crowds of ten thousand". A cry in vain I feel.

As a live singer, just watching on youtube shows the live arena brings the songs greater detail than the album, the words clearer. But sometimes the voice doesn't reach the honeyed smoothness of the album. I saw her live and she achieved both. She was in full voice and the words came through clear.

Kater seems not to very well known going by the 25 who came to see her. This didn't phase her in the least as all was given to the performance, and the intimacy was very special. An unexpected treat was La Misère with the bassist sometime co-vocalist and the French Canadian guitarist substituting on vocals for the female voices on the album. Their timing, and the mesh of their voices, especially that of the guitarist, who brings plenty of personality.

I just wish I'd asked the question afterwards when Kaia stood selling records: you sing of regime change and do you feel strongly about the issue or about your father being affected, because if it is the issue, couldn't you bring your words to the topic of Venezuela where 40,000 civilian deaths have occurred as a direct result of sanctions, sanctions on a supposed dictatorship but one run by a man re-elected in 2018 in a electoral system praised by the Carter Center as the best of the 92 elections they had overseen, and who is opposed by a main opposition that boycotted the elections after not being able to win for 20 years under this acclaimed system. It's the long question I should have asked.

Kaia's sound and musicality have grown and deepened like a good wine even in the year it's been since I last saw her live. Her songs are confident, beautiful, joyful, and heartbreaking all at once. She played her newest album, Grenades, in its entirety, plus some highlights from her older work - including the audio of a conversation she recorded with her father about his experiences as a young revolutionary and then refugee from his home in Grenada. If you get the chance to see her live, run don't walk. She's brilliant!