Posted on 07/06/2009
Kinny is quite frankly an intriguing prospect. For starters, she’s a half Native Canadian, half Jamaican, classically trained opera singer who describes herself as a “freestyle improv vocalist”. But all you really need to know about her is that she’s blessed with an amazingly rich and sultry voice that flows deliciously over the loping, soulful music found within the Idle Forest Of Chit Chat.

Over the course of the album she’s aided and abetted by seven (yes, seven) different collaborators, including the Quantic Soul Orchestra, TM Juke, Nostalgia 77 and Souldrop. Between them, they embrace everything between soul, jazz, funk, hip-hop and electronica in their own inimitable styles. A lesser vocalist might have wilted, or disappeared, under their combined weight. Yet no matter how varied or stunning the production (and there truly are some gems on here) it’s always Kinny and her electrifying vocals that remain the centre of attention.

What she has in spades is range, and nowhere is this better shown than “Enough Said,” a tropically flavoured finger-snapping soul romp. It begins with a heart-wrenching plea for respect dragged from the depths of Kinny’s register and draws to a close, two fabulous minutes later, with her soaring over the muted-trumpet outro in the finest of mezzo-soprano traditions. It’s simply beautiful.

She’s equally at home with the raw funk of “Back Street Lust,” the jazzier, bass heavy stylings of “Forgetting to Remember” and the soulful electronica of “Damn.” One moment she’s pulling your heartstrings, the next she’s dragging you onto the dancefloor, and with her voice, you’d follow her anywhere.

Her seduction begins with the swooning melancholy of the title track, whose floating guitar hook and hypnotic beat have you hooked before Kinny delivers her first irresistible phrases. Five tracks in, and she can deliver putdowns on “Queen of Boredness” as brutal as “I forgot your name, Benjamin will do” without you even flinching. This is what the Sirens would sound like in 2009.

In fact it’s only after repeated listens that it’s possible to appreciate how dark an album Idle Forest Of Chit Chat is lyrically. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in appreciating her vocal talents, or digging the sublime production, to miss the raw emotion that Kinny releases on this record. There’s simply no space for idle chit chat or empty words here, and her sheer power and emotion she cut straight through the meaningless platitudes that always seem to accompany the breakdowns in relationships.

Kinny, quite apart from having a spectacular voice, has, as my uncle would say, balls. You might think twice about chatting her up after analysing the lyrics to “Queen of Boredness,” but you’d be plain stupid to ignore her. Hers is a voice that demands your attention. And once she’s got it, she won’t let go.

- Will Georgi