Year of the Kat

Welsh-Breton singer-songwriter Katell Keineg has a long-established underground following, particularly in her adopted home of Ireland, due to the success of her acclaimed debut O Seasons O Castles and 1997’s JET. She’s back with a four-track EP due for release in May to coincide with the re-release of her two previous albums, but things have been relatively quiet in the Keineg camp over the last five years.

“I’m lazy!” she giggles. “I’ve been travelling around, doing bits of recording and writing. I was working on a French record that I never finished… Now I’ve got the EP recorded and I’ve songs ready for a new album.”

Katell is still Dublin-based, but spends a lot of time in New York, where she’s been working with guitar-player/producer Dim Gurevich of Miss Universe, who joins her for a rare performance in the Project in February. “We perform mainly as a duo, so it’s quite sparse. I’d like to play with a rhythm section again. I’ve been working with different kinds of styles – overall, the songs on the EP are quite gentle, but I’ve been moving nearer to a more rock ‘n’ roll sound with newer songs.”

There’s even a touch of PJ Harvey in the fierce electric thrash of the new song ‘Hitler Was A Momma’s Boy’ which Katell plays exclusively for broadcast on the Hotpress website. Her capability for hard-edged angry rock may be surprising to people who consider her a delicate folk chanteuse.

“I see myself as a rock/pop artist. There’s a lot of prejudicial stereotyping – you’re female and you play guitar, then you’re a folk singer or the album is classed as world music, ‘cause you’ve an exotic name. To me it’s a bit of a ghetto and I don’t want to be marginalised.”

She doesn’t mind being described as too eccentric for mass consumption. “I’m not all that interested in mass consumption anyhow. But sometimes people describe me as weird, and I don’t understand why. Just because I’m not formulaic? I don’t want to be put to one side, away from the main action.”

Her new EP’s called What’s The Only Thing Thing Worse Than The End of Time? Rhetorical question?

“I wrote it on the night of the millennium. People were worried about technological mishaps and computer meltdown at nuclear power stations as midnight struck. I was in Cardiff and stayed up ‘til it turned midnight in New York ‘cause I wanted to ring my friends there, so I wrote this song in between the two millenniums. I suppose the only thing worse than the end of time is everything just carrying on as it is.”