MAMA KIN – BEAT AND HOLLER
Mama Kin is something of a self-made diva. Not having traversed the channels of major label support or a particular interest in being “cool”, she has presented her debut full-length album – a melting pot of soul, rock and a smattering of Latino funk – with hot-blooded enthusiasm. Kin (otherwsie known as Danielle Caruana and wife of John Butler) writes songs largely about the comings and goings of love. And why not? Music is the food of love, after all. Appropriately, the singles she has chosen to represent the album (with inventively slick promo films to boot), are the opposing magnets on the album – To My Table, a swinging calypso-rock taunt – almost what Nora Jones might accomplish if she loosened the belt slightly – and Tore My Heart Out, a beautiful, piano driven lament chronicling the healing of salt-encrusted wounds of the soul. Accompanying Kin is her brother Michael, an able multi-instrumentalist and clear inspiration to her process, a multi-faceted band of friends and producer Tony Bouchen, who crafts these songs into warm gems, Mama Kin’s cajun-club persona spanning a satisfying arc from the rocking Love’s Not So Great to the smoky, sad lo-fi lullaby Your Colour.
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