Captivated And Reaching For Sunlight
Music normally captivates me in three ways:
1) The sound: the melody and ambience of simple tones or intricate chords dancing together in a magical arrangement
2) The lyrics: the words, specific or all-encompassing, that articulate, commiserate and motivate
3) The voice: The unquantifiable features of a singer’s tone and expression that speak to me irrationally and profoundly
Lily C captivates me in all three categories on Reaching For Sunlight. This is Lily C’s debut English album and it is described as, “a collection of songs that reflect her journey to stay hopeful despite challenging circumstances.”
Reaching For Sunlight is joyful and beguiling pop music woven from sonic layers that lull and enliven. It has rousing pep, addictive rhythms and penetrating depth.
The lyrics are enlightening, empowering and everlasting. It may not be fair to extract lyrics from their song bed, but many of these are so powerful on their own that I had to list some of my favourites.
“…in my hurricane of grief can you show me how to breathe…”
“…just when you think that you’re gonna die, that’s when you realize you’re made to fly…”
“…I’m reaching for sunlight like city flowers do…”
Lily’s voice is like hard candy: sweet and solid. It’s like whiskey licorice.
While listening to I Am A Bee, I swore I was soaring on the breeze with butterflies until someone walked in the room and I realized it was just me bouncing in my office chair.
Come Back To My Love affects me most intensely. My heart is struck in all three categories– sound, lyric and voice. The lilting piano notes lure me in off the top, and Lily’s supple and raw vocalizing clinches the enchantment. Every time. I could listen to her vocalization after the bridge on repeat forever. It’s like she’s singing in my ear, whispering, speaking directly to me while I lay on a couch crumpled in defeat. She’s the wee Fairy of Trust lulling me to the belief that everything will be ok; her metaphoric arms first cradling and comforting me before picking me up, dusting me off, and guiding me to stand again on my own with more strength than I had before. If I were to do a cover of a Lily C song, it would be this one!
Listening to Lily C’s music is like starting your day off with a good breakfast: being nourished with your favourite cereal fortified with familiarity and optimism and sweet wee Lily bits that beam up at you through the milk, coaxing you to have a glorious day no matter what comes your way. I think Reaching For Sunlight is a masterwork and I recommend you check it out! www.lilyc.com. Lily also has a pretty inspiring blog: Take A Deep Breath.
I look up to Lily and look forward to more music from her.
I also look forward to sharing the lineup with her at the upcoming Wonder Women V event August 8, 2012 at 7:30 at Celebration Square in Mississauga. But more about that later…
…until then, may the music always play!
Love Kat
www.KatLeonard.com
I interviewed the lovely ladies Heather Hill and Meghan Morrison on their new song Wading Through Normal being released on Heather’s new CD Leuty Station. Experience their charm and hear the song here! 😀
Love feels better when you give it away!
It’s true, isn’t it?
This past week we held Wonder Women IV and there was so much love and spirit pinging off the walls of The Central Bar & Grill I felt bombarded by joy!
Wonder Women is a series of live events started by the uber-talented and ever-generous Wonder Woman Arlene Paculan. She created it to help promote local talent and also raise awareness and funds for local charities. For WWIV we joined with Red Door Family Shelter and Beverly Webb from Red Door attended the event to share the love and spread the word.
A highlight for me was when the beautiful Arlene Paculan covered my greatest hit Jockstrap and made it sweetly and sinfully soulful.
Here’s a link to the video: Arlene does Jockstrap!
Blurbs and pictures from WWIV can be found in the blogs of the following Wonder Women:
“Four, hot talented women join forces for Red Door at Wonder Women IV”
-Life With More Cowbell
“Wonder Women IV“-Lizzie Violet
“Wonder Women Awesomeness“-Lizzie Violet
“The Wonderful Women at Wonder Women IV“-Ellie Anderson
Wishing you the joy of love coming in and going out in equal measure!
Love KAT 🙂
Meghan Morrison: A Force of Love
-photo by Lizzie Violet
Meghan Morrison at Velvet Underground Canadian Music Week
This week pulsed with remarkable moments, and many of those moments were made extraordinary because they involved Meghan Morrison. Meghan Morrison is a force of love. I adore her. I challenge any live being (big or small, furry or bipedal) to spend any amount of time in her company and not adore her. She is the light in a dark cave, she is the first giggle you hear after being submerged in the humdrumity of daily life, and she is the sweet gentle breeze that cradles and invigorates you.
My first Meghan Morrison event this week was co-hosting her cyber jam webcast. Featured this week were Angela Saini (CD release April 4th at The Drake!) and Supertash! I could gush for pages on how much fun I had with these fireballs and how wonderful I think they are, but I think you should go to their websites and find out for yourself! It is always a blast to tune in to the webcast and participate in the chatroom. I encourage you to check out the next live webcast and also peruse the archives for a plethora of unique and inspiring local artists! This is Meghan’s glorious website: www.meghanmorrisonmusic.com
My second Meghan Morrison event this week was her performance at Velvet Underground for CMW (Canadian Music Week). Her set was enlightening in a rock-and-lightning kind of way. Her music is groovy and ethereal. Her voice is uplifting and haunting. Her presence and passion gave me heartrush and goose bumps! It’s fitting that the title of her album released last fall, Lark, is a conjunction of the words Light and Dark. It makes so much sense! And you can feel the love and enjoyment emanating from the stage off of each band member; a palpable force of love with Meghan Morrison at the vortex. They are all amazing.
-photo by Lizzie Violet
Kelly Lefaive,Stuart Everitt, Meghan Morrison, Evan LeBlanc
Meghan also made cupcakes for the entire room. I had two, ‘cause there was one dude at the bar who didn’t look like he’d have a cupcake while drinking beer. This is one of my favourite Meghan Morrison songs, Hush. I hope to do a cover of it one day! LifeWithMoreCowbell was also a big part of the fun– as always, enhancing everything with her involvement.
-Jessica Speziale, Kat Leonard, Lily Cheng, Debra Alexander, Heather Hill, Lucy LeBlanc, Champagne Charlie
CMW brought me much joy time with many friends (new and already cherished). I feel blessed and am already looking forward to next year! One of the brightest highlights of CMW for me was partying with Seymour Stein! He signed The Pretenders, The Ramones, Talking Heads, and is the founder of Sire Records and– Oh, yeah, THAT Seymour Stein who signed Madonna!!!!! To put the importance of this to me into perspective for you: Christians have Jesus and I have Madonna. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her existence, her example of innovation, balls and dance grooves. You cannot imagine the rate at which my heart pumped when I heard the words, “Seymour Stein is sitting in the corner right there.” Oh Em Gee! Okay, so I didn’t actually PARTY with Seymour. Okay, okay, he may not have actually been aware that I was THERE. But this Kat was at a wee private hotel room party at which Seymour Stein sat in a chair listening to the same intimate acoustic set I was listening to. And I did escort him to his room afterward. Okay, okay, so he didn’t actually KNOW I was escorting him… but I did. I followed him out and meandered with stealth amongst the human clamour he undoubtedly endures most everywhere he goes. And I got a blurry picture of him from behind and faraway and I will cherish this photo by myself. Because that’s the kind of stalker I am.
What a week! Now let’s start the next one!
Hope you enjoy yours!
Spring has sprung!
The sun is shining, the windows are open, the breeze no longer bites your arse, and it’s time for dreams to come true!
I am so thrilled to be involved in this amazing show coming April 25th at Central in Toronto!
Happy Spring, everybuddy!
Love KAT
KAT LEONARD (Kat & The MP3) 