Mama Kin knows how to stomp. Their sound is a deep lush swamp groove. A fusion of New Orleans jazz with something darker, something far more Voodoo. It’s a lush bayou beat, one that’s irrevocably spicy and intoxicating.
Mama Kin’s Danielle Caruana took some time out to chat with OUTinPerth on the cusp of her Escape To The Park appearance.
What can you tell us about your sound? I think our sound is tipsy and my writing style is fairly heart-on-sleeve kind of stuff. It’s just getting on stage and expressing everything we’ve got, really. I’ve kind of had this music in me for a long time and to finally be expressing it is really liberating.
So the new single, Tore My Heart Out, tell us about that? I suppose it’s a heartbreak song, but it’s one of the ones where it’s the classic thing of going back to the same person, to the same kind of shit over and over again, until you finally go “You know what? I’m not a little kid anymore and I’m not going to be treated like this by you anymoreâ€. I wrote the song many, many, many years after heartbreak, but I think it was a perspective of how I’d never really let go of staying around and what a dickhead I’d been to go back over and over again and I think that song was kind of the process of me going “You know what? You’re just a kid, it’s alright; you didn’t know any better.â€
And it got nominated just recently as single of the week on iTunes? Yeah, it was single of the week on iTunes on November third for a week and I just found out yesterday that the clip is the Rage indie clip of the week. So people are picking it up and digging the song which is all you could ever want as an artist -that some people hear it and some people like it.
With the positive reaction you’re getting at festivals across the country, is that making the prospect of releasing your album in February a little bit easier, or is it still very nervous for you? No, it’s still completely daunting. I think the biggest hurdle I have to get over before I even was able to consider releasing my music at all was that some people are going to hate it and some people are going to love it, but I’m not used to ruffling feathers. I suppose I’ve always played it… not safe, but I have a way of operating that’s not about taking creative risks at all and making music is absolutely that; it’s a creative risk because you’re kind of expressing your particular flavour.
Mama Kin appears at Escape to the Park on Saturday December 5. www.mellenevents.com
Scott-Patrick Mitchell