It’s already been a busy year for Katy Kirby. January saw the release of her second album, Blue Raspberry on ANTI- Records, home to other singularly diverse female artists such as Waxahatchee, Leyla McCalla, and Madi Diaz. A series of live dates supporting the record quickly ensued in her home country of America before the tour crossed the Atlantic to take in Europe and the UK. Leeds is the penultimate show in this country.
Had this gig been taking place 60 years ago, we could easily have been mistaken beforehand for believing that we were off to see Kathy Kirby had the performer in question somehow dropped a letter from her first name. But this is not 1964 and the woman standing on the Brudenell stage is certainly not an English variety show star or former Eurovision runner-up. She is the Texas-born singer-songwriter Katy Kirby and a certified winner – her two studio albums alone are a firm testament to this – and whilst she and her near-namesake certainly share a supremely expressive vocal range, it is there that the similarities end.
Fronting a ballroom orchestra or belting out music hall favourites and showstopping standards is not for the American Kirby. Instead, hers is a musical world on record that is inhabited by subtle chamber pop, often abstract off-kilter indie-folk, a fistful of piano-led ballads, and a little bit of country reflecting her time spent living in Nashville. It all arrives imbued with Katy Kirby’s sharp, intuitive lyrical imagery.
If the songs of the 1960s emerged out of a period of gender stereotypes and repressed emotion, Katy Kirby finds herself in an era of sexual emancipation and where explicit references to an artist’s lived experience can be routinely heard in their music. Kirby, though, locates her songs on Blue Raspberry somewhere between such personal candour and the abundance of her own imagination.
Tonight’s opener, ‘Redemption Arc’ – the first track on Blue Raspberry – immediately affirms the creative position that Katy Kirby has taken. “Mutually assured distraction, Prophets of our self-fulfilment,” she sings to someone who could be either real or imagined. And it is this heightened sense of doubt and uncertainty – did this really happen? – which adds to the overall experience of seeing Katy Kirby in concert.
What did happen, though, is patently clear on ‘Wait Listen.’ By the time of writing that song Katy Kirby has begun to assume her queer identity and then quickly fallen in and out of love. The memory of this relationship appears to still unsettle her and the level of discomfort is highlighted when she brings the song to a shuddering halt. Taken back to that exact moment in time, she is initially unable to utter the song’s most explicit line. That she eventually emotes “let her fuck me like you thought you did” at the second attempt merely adds to the drama and impact of the occasion.
Whether it is through a strong sense of catharsis or just sheer relief at having been able to finish this song, the set then shifts up a gear. Backed by Margeau Bouchegnies (bass guitar), Austin Arnold (drums), and Logan Chung (guitar), Katy Kirby moves onto another level of delivery concluding her set with a celebratory ‘Party of the Century’, Blue Raspberry’s imperious title track which she dedicates to lesbians, and an incredibly muscular reading of another title track, this time that of her debut album, Cool Dry Place. As if in recognition that she has reached the evening’s summit of potency and power, Kirby then gently turns the wick down and concludes with a stunning solo version of ‘Portals.’ It is a perfect illustration of the polarity of her performance, her ability to move effortlessly between strength and vulnerability, openness and obfuscation, and light and shade.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Katy Kirby at Brudenell Social Club
