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Cake magazine
(Originally published in Cake Issue #30)
Katell Keineg
Ô Seasons Ô Castles
Elektra Records
One night back in June of '92, a buddy and I were in a small dingy Manhattan club waiting to see a favorite band of ours (The Reducers check 'em out, they're great) and were suffering through a horrible opening act, so we decided to go next door and check out the music there, figuring that it couldn't be any worse. About a dozen people were there, and onstage was Katell Keineg. She performed one of the best sets I've ever seen.It's taken until now for her to get signed and release her first record apart from a single or two and a couple of compilation tracks. It wasn't an easy wait, but it was a worthwhile one. Ô Seasons Ô Castles is a staggeringly good debut. If Van Morrison and Patti Smith had a baby, it would sound like Katell Keineg. They're the only other ones that I can think of that immerse themselves as fully in their music she does. It's only by dint of her total passion that she can sing lines like "I want you/but I don't want your monkey" ("Hestia") and not have them come off as utterly ludicrous. That, and a wonderful voice that can at some times be crystalline (check out the impossible notes she hits during the coda to "Franklin" much more effective than any of Mariah Carey's dog-whistle theatrics) and at others become breathy and raspy.
Sometimes she's so immersed that she's literally speaking in tongues, like the end of "Cut", a jazzy Latin number. "Bop" starts out quiet and idyllic, but by its close has built into a noisy frenzy. At other times she can take it low and smooth, which she does to great effect on the torchy "Burden". Most of the songs are quite heavy in their emotion, but not necessarily their music. "Destiny's Darling", however, is uplifting in both its words and music, an exuberant celebration of love. It has the same walking on air feel as "Chuck E.'s In Love".
There's no doubt that Ô Seasons Ô Castles can stand along side records like Astral Weeks, Horses, and Pirates. (We did go back and see The Reducers that night and they were as remarkable as usual.)