(5 / 5)
Kitty Liv has released her flipping excellent debut solo album “Easy Tiger” – 10 tracks, written, re-written and recorded over a five-year period.
This gifted multi-instrumentalist, singer and formidable songwriter has spent 24 years of globe-trotting with her family’s celebrated band, Kitty, Daisy and Lewis.
The album on Sunday Best Recordings offers up 10 strong self-penned cuts which act as a kind of therapeutic journal and personal mantra for Kitty, while enduring a toxic relationship and post its eventual break-up, and the damage done to her self-confidence.
Her salvation came via Beans On Toast! No, not the staple British snack, but her mate Jay McAllister aka Essex folk artist Beans On Toast, who asked Kitty to open for him as a solo artist on a major tour. Something she’d never done before having always performed with her family since she was seven.
And after a few glasses of wine at a dinner party, when her brother Lewis convinced her to play him the demos of songs she’d written for herself [with no intention to ever let anyone else hear them]. Big brother loved them and said: “Let’s make a solo record”. So they did, and “Easy Tiger” is the result.
Kitty Durham [Liv is her middle name] has been part of the band with older sister Daisy and older brother Lewis, and mum on bass and dad on piano, since the year 2000, when she was seven. The band released four albums and toured non-stop across the world. The family own a recording studio in London’s Kentish Town in a former Indian restaurant.
They toured American stadiums for six weeks with Coldplay at their request, and were the subject of a BBC TV documentary. Amy Winehouse was a fan and the band played at some of her birthday parties.
The youngest of the Durham kids, Kitty is 31-years-old now and very happy in her life at last; engaged to drummer Jack Flanagan who plays in her own band, former bassist with The Mystery Jets.
The 10 self-penned originals, include an album version of her EP title track, “The River That Flows”. Kitty, her brother Lewis on bass on half the record, Adrian Meehan on drums and Rich Milner on organ and keyboards are the ensemble on the album. Kitty plays bass on the other half, some mini-Moog synthesiser, percussion and lead vocals.
She is an audaciously talented harmonica player too, as you hear on the smoking track, “Keep Your Head Up High” . Kitty and Lewis produced the project.
The album features previous singles “Sweet Dreams”, “Keep Your Head Up High”, and “The Sun and The Rain”. With influences ranging from Erykah Badu and D’Angelo to Al Green and Howlin’ Wolf, she has worked to produce a body of personal songs that evoke the primal depths of classic soul, Gospel blues and old school rock and roll.
It has groove, it has sass, it is bluesy, it rocks out;, it has light and it has shade. Raw yet cleverly produced. The vocals very much on-point and fresh; no trills and fancy runs to emulate the Beyonces and the Whitneys.
Kitty has her own sound and leans more towards Amy than she does to the modern day r&b and pop starlets, many of whom can all sound the same.
On her debut LP, Kitty Liv seamlessly blends nostalgia of the past with a modern, fresh approach. Not a duff track among the 10, and “Easy Tiger” definitely leaves you wanting more. Her middle name Liv is Norwegian and pronounced “Leave”. We hope she doesn’t!
By Christopher Weston
Photos: Alex Asprey [Green top] / Steve Best [white jacket – live shot]
(1 / 5) ‘Dull Zone’
(2 / 5) ‘OK Zone’
(3 / 5) ‘Decent Zone’
(4 / 5) ‘Super Zone’ (5 / 5) ‘Awesome Zone’
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