09
2014
 
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Events 2014

20.09.2014
Lectures/Events

Concert by Katell Keineg
9.30 p.m.

Concert by the Breton-Welsh singer-songwriter Katell Keineg at Künstlerhaus
within the Open Day at Künstlerhaus
Saturday, 20 September 2014, 9.30 p.m.

Entrance free.

www.youtube.com

Based in Wales, Katell Keineg is a singer-songwriter whose music has captured a strong, cult audience around the world. Having toured with U2 (in the 1990s) and released two albums on Elektra Records, Katell Keineg’s music is a complex blend of folk, pop and traditional music, inspired often by art and politics. Her father is a poet from Brittany and her mother is a political activist from Wales. Clearly both of them made an indelible impression upon their daughter’s journey through music.

Katell Keineg is best known for her powerful, inimitable voice that soars over her melodies in raptures of joy and sorrow. With songs of hers such as “One Hell of a Life,” “Smile,” “Hestia,” “There You Go Now” and her unmistakable cover of Nick Drake’s “River Man,” we encounter the peaks and valleys of this raw, formidable and always moving voice.

In the mid-nineties, after a spell in Ireland, she went to live in New York and was quickly embraced by the buzzing cafe scene around St Mark’s Place’s Sin-é. In 1993, while building her reputation for “conveying a nearly beatific sense of joy in performance” (Los Angeles Times), she released a seven-inch single on Bob Mould’s SOL Records label. That same year, Katell sang on Iggy Pop’s “American Caesar” and following his passing of her single on to Elektra, they signed her and released her first album “O Seasons, O Castles” in 1994.

1997 saw the release of Katell’s second album “Jet.” Recorded in Bearsville, “Jet” received rave reviews and led to much touring in the U.S. and Europe. It was even named one of the “Best Overlooked Pop Masterpieces Of The Decade” by Esquire. Keineg’s live work has included singing with Jeff Buckley, Allen Ginsberg and Calexico, opening for many people from Morphine to the Tarafs De Haidouks.

In 2002, free from merger-addled Elektra, Katell released an E.P. entitled “What’s The Only Thing Worse Than The End Of Time?” on Brooklyn based indie, Field Recording Co. The recording included a live performance of “River Man” from a tribute to Nick Drake held at St Ann’s Church in Brooklyn. In their review of the night, The New York Times declared her "...a young songwriter due for her own cult, who travelled the fine edge between rapture and loss so essential to Mr Drake’s art.” Following the release of a second E.P. (Shaking The Disease), Keineg released “High July,” her third album, in late 2004 to further enthusiastic reviews. A re-recorded version of “On Yer Way” from that album was used on the soundtrack of Deborah Kampmeier’s indie film “Virgin” with Robin Wright Penn, also in 2004. Katell was the subject of a 6-page profile in The New York Times Sunday Magazine in July 2006 which led to sold out gigs in New York City.

Summer 2007 was spent playing European festivals with concert pianist Katia Labeque’s experimental band, B For Bang. Keineg released a 4-song E.P. in January 2009 that includes the re-recorded “On Yer Way” and a Welsh language cover of the Super Furry Animals song “Y Gwyneb Iau.”

Keineg released “At The Mermaid Parade,” her fourth album, in spring 2010. It was released on STZ in North America and by Honest Jon's Records, Damon Albarn’s label, in the rest of the world. The album received yet more glowing reviews including “Album of the Week” in the The Sunday Times. She toured in the UK and Ireland following the album’s release, opening for singer-songwriter Krystle Warren and playing The Green Man festival.

In May 2012, Keineg released a download single in Welsh called “Platform 0” recorded in New York for the internet radio show Radio Free Song Club with their all-star house band.

Katell Keineg

Katell Keineg