Kim Logan’s latest album “Shadow Work”, made with her Parisian band The Silhouettes, is a record that will stop you in your tracks. With Kim attracting international attention for her powerful voice, stage sense and songwriting, Jason Barnard speaks to the Florida born vocalist.
Hi Kim, can you tell us about your latest album Shadow Work? What was the writing and recording process?
Hey! Sure… I had visited Paris to play solo and duo act shows a few years ago, and met my guitar player Martin Zissel on the first night I ever played there. We ended up starting a band… we all got together as Kim Logan & the Silhouettes in 2018. We toured all around Europe and the UK for a year and a half or so, and then put out the album that sort of came out of that time together. I had written some of the songs back in Nashville or New York City, and wrote a couple of the newer ones in Paris or Scotland between tours. We made the album between Glasgow and Folkestone down on the English coast. We did some overdubs in Paris too, and then I brought the whole thing back to Nashville to be mixed and mastered… I spent a week in Sputnik Sound working on it with Mike Fahey, one of the engineers I’ve been collaborating with since I was just starting out with my label and projects. He and Vance Powell have done so much incredible work with Jack White, Kings of Leon, Buddy Guy, Seasick Steve, and so many others… they really helped me establish my career in the beginning.
What tracks from it would you recommend we seek out as a taster and why?
I would probably send you to the song “Oedipus Wrecks” for the real distilled essence of the album. We worked really hard on the production and arrangement of that one, to make it cut with the right amount of force, while keeping the vibe of the narrative. It’s just a really perfect combination of the garage and blues edge I saw for this album, with a little bit of the polish and trickery I learned from Nashville, which can make things sound really spooky and transcendent. I also really love how “Better Way” turned out… it’s something I had recorded before, but this version is just shattering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmrckfIbhek&t=226s
Why did you come to England to record?
When I was mostly living in Paris with the Silhouettes, pre-pandemic, we were frequently crossing over to London to do festivals or meetings or whatever, and ended up in the small towns of Kent. We played a few great little venues there, and met some music industry folks who had come there to live a more chill rural life than in crazy London. We ended up recording a lot of the album at the personal studio of Andrew McGuinness and Andy Thomas, two engineer/musician legends from the area. Then we did the last two tracks several months later up in Glasgow, at the gorgeous studio where our sound engineer Duncan McLaren works, Solas Sound. Glasgow has music in every corner, it’s a special place for rock, and jazz, and psychedelic stuff.
How did you meet The Silhouettes?
Martin and his girlfriend at the time introduced me to the musicians that answered an ad they posted online… we booked some gigs in Paris, and I flew in… we played our first show the night we met. I think we played three shows that week. They’re some of my closest friends, we just have the right hang, the right family situation. It’s something that was really an ideal for me, having worked with so many different lineups of musicians in Nashville. There are tons of talented players out there… but to have something that feels right and feels electric as a unit is special and rare and something you’re kind of always looking for, anytime you can get it.
Who played on the album?
The Silhouettes were mostly the same throughout, with some very talented guests coming through in addition to the road band. Martin played guitar and steel guitar, Jules Darmon played drums, and Myriam Stamoulis and Alexis Collard both played bass and sang on the album. We had Victor Mechanick and Tom Liam Bourcier come in on keys. It was fun dubbing Victor’s keys in Paris in Martin’s childhood home in Pigalle… the place is from the 1860s or so I think, and is pure elegance.
I’ve previously spoken to Gyasi – how much have you collaborated with him?
Gyasi and I lived a few doors down from each other in the dorms at Berklee, in ye olde times! We toured all over the place together for years and years, in the UK, Europe, and the States. He even engineered a couple of my recordings… one of my favorites was the jazz/R&B EP we made on his tape machine with my friends from Florida, The Hydramatic. It’s called Fresh Juice and has such a 70s Florida vibe, something I always have fun with.
Where are you from and where are you based now? Has that influenced you as a writer and performer?
My family were what you would call “snowbirds,” living between Florida and New England based on the seasons. It gets too cold to be in a really old house in the mountains all winter, and generations of people have been going south to Florida in this weird loop forever. So Florida and New Hampshire probably equally influenced me, culturally. Cities are really where you learn to perform, though. Boston, New York, Nashville, Chicago… those places all taught me a lot and prepared me for making the leap overseas and doing something I’d always wanted to with the Silhouettes. Working so much with the Silhouettes in Paris is really rewarding in this regard… they really know how to put on an incredible and stylish show, and the French are a particularly good audience.
What generally inspires you to write music? What comes first – lyrics or music?
I feel like it’s different every time, and I always forget how songs come about, like the genesis of the idea gets blurry. It’s so random. Something will come all at once, after I’ve toiled at something else for an entire year. I still don’t understand it… but projects always end up coming together the way they were meant to. I’m always writing words down, sometimes they catch music.
You’ve played great live versions of “Season of the Witch” and “21st Schizoid Man” – what are your musical influences?
Thanks, those are a couple of my favorite ones to do! I have always had a special love for 60s/70s psychedelic music and heavy blues rock, and stuff like Black Sabbath or Coven that was about the occult. That sort of came back around in a big way when I discovered modern 60s psych revival bands like the Black Angels and Brian Jonestown Massacre… and some of the bands that have really been keeping the torch burning in modern times are people I came up around or worked with, like Low Cut Connie, Ron Gallo, The Jag (now known as Nu Mangos), Ron Gallo, and the Lucille Furs. There’s so much good music still being made.
Were you in many bands before recording solo?
Not really. I was mostly an opera singer before I put my first album together. I sang in a couple little high school and Berklee projects, with good musicians who inspired me, but nothing really serious until I did my first album in Nashville. More recently, I’ve played in Nikki Lane’s band, did the background vocals with Margo Price for our friend Tanya Coe’s first record, and was in the Philadelphia-based rock and roll band Low Cut Connie.
Can you tell me about your musical history?
It was honestly a pretty clear-cut journey because my parents started me in music training early. I went from opera and dance and guitar and piano as a kid, to Berklee, to Nashville. Once I started touring and recording I just wanted to be everywhere at once, to see the whole world. Still working on it.
What are your favourite tracks from across all your musical career?
I have a soft place in my heart for the weird songs, like “Keep Your Love” from my first album, or “Monday Night Soul” from Fresh Juice with The Hydramatic. I like that albums have singles or hits or whatever, but I’ve always liked to make, and listen to, the meat of the album that lies underneath… where it gets a little more loose and honest.
Your videos are very striking, like “Better Way”. Do you normally have the ideas for their look?
I usually collaborate with my visual director Michael Alley on anything we put out image or video-wise for the music releases, and we truly just go with the synesthesia of the thing most of the time. We’ll agree on a color palette for whatever the song might be, and a general frequency that we’ll both pick up as to whether the visuals need to reflect a certain period in time, or work with a certain medium, or deliver a certain message.
Has your songwriting style changed over the years?
Definitely. What we listen to changes, and it’s natural to make art that reflects that. Evolution is constant in creativity, and travel certainly helps it along. I think my roots will always show through though… when you look at having the core blues, jazz, and rock & roll foundations of the 20th century, we’re really all just making the same thing with different tools.
You’ve been on the same bill as artists such as Tom Petty, Willie Nelson and John Prine. Do you have any memories of those shows?
The Tom Petty show was totally nuts and a lot of fun. I had just found out we were on the bill a month before the show, which was part of Summerfest in Milwaukee. I had to fly back early from the UK, and put my Nashville band back together for a little run up to Wisconsin and Chicago… we got the Music City Burlesque to travel with us, and ended up playing the House of Blues’ cabaret room in Chicago, and doing the festival set with a full-on burlesque troupe. It was a total rock and roll spectacle. Anytime I’ve ever gotten the chance to be around the magic show that is Willie Nelson has been unforgettable… my Taurus king! John Prine was one of a kind, and that show was in the town where I was born in Florida. That meant a lot.
What do you do outside of music?
I’ve found a lot of great hobbies and studies and outlets over the years outside of touring and recording… I like working with plants, astrology, working on restoring the old houses where I live between the US and Glasgow, and doing other forms of writing, like poetry. I’ve got a piece coming out in an American literary journal called Rust + Moth this spring, and I hope to do more of that kind of thing in the future. Maybe mix it with music somehow.
How has the pandemic affected you?
The Silhouettes and I had probably 4 months of touring from France to the UK to the US canceled, or postponed until 2021… which seems questionable too at this point. We’re not going back to the way things were before, and we absolutely have to figure out a more just, inclusive, and artist-centric way to do things across the entire industry now. We hope to be back on the road this summer or next.
Do you have any plans for the rest of the year?
I have no idea what’s happening with the world or the music business, so I’m just reading and writing and taking care of myself. I have songs for a third LP, and the Silhouettes and I have started working on them. Who knows?
How can people get a copy of Shadow Work and keep up with your latest projects?
You can get a copy of the Shadow Work LP on my Bandcamp site:
www.kimlogan.bandcamp.com
I’m sure I’ll be speaking more about my third album, and other projects, later in 2021.
