Inventive Grenadian-Canadian folk and roots musician Kaïa Kater gave “grow through what you go through” a profound new meaning on May 17th, 2024. Her inspiringly woven fourth album, Strange Medicine, honors the voices of oppressed groups and silenced women with historically inspired storylines over stirringly delicate orchestration.
Disgruntled pasts and unjust consistencies plague our yesterdays, so Kater drew them a seat at the table with rejuvenating vigor. The artist’s sound has further uniquely distinguished itself, restoring her stylistically poetic banjo picking after discovering its true roots as a Black-originating instrument. As she finds her own voice for personal complexities, she invites her ancestry and those of her communities to declare their individual verity.
A melodic tale exclaiming and reclaiming women’s righteousness under the ceiling of patriarchy, “The Witch” features Aoife O’Donovan’s guest vocals over a hauntingly beautiful scene inspired by the deaf scapegoating of women that fueled the Salem witch trials. Kater, flipping the textbook narrative on its head, follows the progression of feminine frustration under masculine contortion with a triumphant redeeming of power.
“The Internet,” sustained by an infectious motif that we all can’t seem to get enough of, is a beguiling meditation on the personal limitations ingrained in our deep societal interconnectedness with online spaces. The banjo circles on a ruminating progression while tauntingly unintelligible electronic vocals fill the soundscape with reminiscent tones and before ringing out, “Oh how I long / To just / Feel any rush / Out beyond the pull of the internet.”
Acclaimed American folk and blues artist Taj Mahal and his Caribbean influences join Kater on the sixth track, “Fédon,” to foreground the rushing emotions moments before the Grenadian insurrection against British colonization. The Haitian Revolution-inspired attack finds itself represented by a humble percussive march under dissonantly brave lyrical portrayal. An ode to the album title, “Here it comes, that fearful feeling / Does it make your ears ring / Strange medicine isn’t it,” drives her political memorandum: finding propelling grit in the prejudiced grime.
The Strange Medicine Tour Spring 2024 continues to sweep North America this spring as Kater — represented by Canada’s Acrönym Records and America’s Free Dirt Records — bestrews her cinematic tenor from Georgia to Winnipeg, which started April 9th and runs through July 11th.
As a resident alumni of the Canadian Film Centre’s Slaight Family Music Composer Lab and a Juno Award-nominated composer, the Canadian songstress is no stranger to channeling and provoking raw emotion, wonderfully exemplified in her scores for The Porter and My Dead Friend Zoe (Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris). The Black Feminist perspective is too powerful and long-suppressed for a male-dominated industry to uphold its tendencies of gagging marginalized voices, and Kaïa Kater is prosperously leading the way for progressivism and political transparency — and doing so with a burning fire.
Featured photo by Janice Reid
