Make no mistake, Canadian singer-songwriter Veda Hille is all about the journey. A multimedia artist who occasionally ventures into podcasting, film and video creation in her spare time, Hille often sounds like she’s on the other side of an intense board room meeting with her folksy, jazzy and chamber music muses.
Hille recently performed a concert with the Canadian Broadcasting Company Orchestra, where she mixed her own original material with edgy readings of songs by Buffy Saint-Marie, Gordon Lightfoot and Ron Sexsmith. Hauntingly sweet, fringe folk and avant-pop were the first words that came to mind. But really, that doesn’t even begin to describe how it all sounded; it’s worth the effort to dig up this performance online if you can.
Never heard of her? Well, read on and then proceed to covet her as your own secret personal troubadour.
It isn't any wonder that reclusive sovereign pop introvert Andy Partridge of XTC has begun releasing Hille’s work on his new Ape House label. Partridge cinched the deal by reissuing Hille’s mesmerizing oeuvre from 2005, Return of the Kildeer to a larger audience. An intensely moving album, Kildeer's sonics fall somewhere between her quirky compatriots Jane Siberry, Laurie Anderson and Tori Amos – with shades of Kurt Weill, Rickie Lee Jones, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Björk (think Dancer in the Dark) thrown in for good measure.
Kildeer opens with “A Fine Start” which feels like an elementary school girl singing along with her ballerina music box, but from there the “moments of simpler time” tranquility ebb and flow. On numbers ”Oh, The Endless Fog” and “Queen of the May” – the latter of which might be the darker, longing side to Jill Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” – Hille seems to go for that peculiar, unfiltered id balladry that Amos has made a career out of. To that end, sometimes the delicate and pretty moments become unhinged, morose and even a little ominous.
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