Kat Terran has produced a beautiful album with words and sounds that haunt and mystify.
Lion & Blue opens with "Aspen Tree," and after the opening chords you be lost in the entire album, unwilling to even remember where the OFF button is.
Because Kat Terran transports you to a haunting place with her unique vocals (part warbling, part ancient chant, but melodic all the while) and the orchestration of her composite indie-folk music, which includes the obligatory snare drum and acoustic guitar, but also violins, cello and a flushed-out bass.
Drawing inspiration from influences both ethnic (she's Lithuanian) and from the past (mom played Gregorian chants on the boombox, and Terran spent adolescence dependent on college radio) Kat Terran has painted a landscape she continues to explore.
In fact, she takes the listener to these places, which are semi-medieval (such as on the Baroque-influenced "Baltic Soldier) or Asian (such as the tinkling percussion on "Caravan").
While notes are memorable, so are lyrics. And while the music can set the scene, it's Terran's words that transport listeners to exotic locales: "Small backyard with crib like fences" on "Southeast Window," or "Right beneath the waves/misting crystal steel/tide swells from swallowing the sea" on "The Sea."
With strong themes of nature, bleeding and swallowing, Lion & Blue is not a cheery place. In fact, Terran's vocals, while dramatic, seem to saunter, letting on that much more emotion is kept leashed.
There's a definite beauty in this album, like that of da Vinci's Mona Lisa, that makes us wonder.
Catherine E. Galioto is Rockzone's Features Editor / Columnist. Contact her at ms.matilda@rockzone.com.
From Ectophiles Guide to Good Music:
This a strong, mature collection of songs. I find it instantly compelling: a combination of beautiful, meditative, lovely moments with tough, driving tunes. It adds up to an impressive collection; like the previous ep I find myself listening to each song and declaring it my favourite--at least until I hear the next track. The songs range widely: the tracks are the eastern-European feeling "Aspen Tree" through the lilting "Curious Girl", the gently driving "Baltic Soldier", the dreamy "Iris", the slow bending "Caravan", the lovely garden-y "Southeast Window", the powerful "Boa Constrictor", the melancholy "Three Friends", the eerie "Dolls", the gorgeous "The Sea, and the playful "Daydream in the Afternoon". As you can see there are many flavours here, all united by Kat Terran's lovely guitar work and her scratchy, evocative vocals. Highly, highly recommended. (Neile)
The moment I put Kat Terran's Lion & Blue in my disc player I knew I was hearing something special, and repeated plays and acquiring a copy of her first self-titled ep has only strengthened that certainty. Even on first hearing, her songs lodge themselves in my mind. It's hard to figure out exactly what it is about her music that catches me so strongly: her vocals can be rough-edged and can move from sweet to harsh within a phrase; her songs take unexpected turns but also have clear melodies; the ornamentation of the instrumentation around the melodies (and of her voice) can be unusual. The topics of her songs range a lot, too, and they tend to have the allusive quality of lyricists like Kristin Hersh and Tori Amos, rather than straightforward one-dimensional meanings and symbolism of mainstream pop tunes. Because of this I tend to find her songs make me want to pay attention to them, and whether or not I understand them directly, their emotional impression is powerful. (Neile)
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