CityLife

Kin – Manchester songstress finds punk rock salvation at last

KIn

SITTING in a city centre bar on a balmy Good Friday afternoon, Kin Foster – the singer, songwriter and figurehead of Manchester experimental rockers Kin – is calmly batting aside CityLife’s amateur attempts to psycho-analyse her.

Cradling a cup of coffee, the 28-year-old insists: “I’m not really one for self-analysis, and over-examining things. Morbid introspection isn’t really my thing. I’m quite private really.”

Even so, the journey that brought Kin here - from arty wilderness to hotly-tipped 2009 Manc music prospect - is certainly a road that demands close examination.

The 28-year-old was born in Germany to parents in the British Forces, and had an incredibly peripatetic childhood shifting from army base to army base.

Harboured ambitions

Eventually, as a teenager, she relocated to Oxfordshire, and then onto Bristol as an arts student, where she harboured ambitions to be a painter.

But two years ago, following what she describes as a “mini breakdown”, Kin moved to Manchester determined to make a fresh break. She briefly dabbled in the ‘folktronica’ scene, but it’s only now, since the start of the year, that Kin has found her true musical vocation – as a modern day Patti Smith, but with more robust, gut-punching punk songs.

  “There’s no denying that I’ve had a complicated upbringing,” Kin ponders, clearly nervous about discussing her past.

“But has it affected me emotionally? Perhaps. When you live in so many places, you can quickly learn to love things quickly, but it’s also very easy to say goodbye to people and places. I don’t settle very easily, and I have very itchy feet.

''But I try not to examine the past too much. I’m too busy looking forwards and finding new challenges. I can be very transient.”

Creative exploits

Kin, you feel, is simply trying to maintain a sense of mystique about herself. Indeed, the name ‘Kin’ isn’t her real name (“I like the idea of an alter-ego... the way Bat For Lashes has”), but a moniker she uses for her varied creative exploits.

That creative streak first made an impact in Manchester’s electronica/avante garde circles, where Kin sang vocals for the short-lived but much-praised band Peterloo Massacre.

The reason for their demise? Put simply, Kin wasn’t working enough of a sweat on stage.

Work up some sweat

“My first experiences of making music in Manchester were very different,” she explains.

“I was making far more cerebral music, very experimental stuff. But there came a point when I became bored – it just wasn’t fun improvising vocals over long, instrumental music.

''It doesn’t really engage with the audience. I wanted to pick up the guitar and rock out a little; engage with my punk rock side and work up some sweat.”

Sweaty moshpit

Indeed, as of 2009, Kin seems to have found her true calling, by making music which firmly engages with the sweaty moshpit rather than the old grey matter.

Assisted by her more than qualified bandmates – bassist Ding who's played for The Fall and PJ Harvey, plus drummer Howard Jones and keyboardist Jonn Dean – Kin deliver a stirring punk maelstrom which nods to To Bring You My Love-era PJ Harvey, with sonic decoration courtesy of Radiohead’s more electronica-tinged moments.

Underpinning this electronica-punk tapestry is the most impressive element of all, and that’s Kin’s incredible vocal gymnastics.

She's an an octave-vaulting chanteuse as capable of close-mic’ed sensitivity as she is raw-throated power, her vocal idiosyncrasies are matched only by the magic of the beguiling soundscapes behind her.

     “Right now, my main intention is to provoke a physical response from the listener,” Kin explains intensely.

Hairs stand on end

“Making music which stimulates the brain is one thing, but I think it’s more important to write music that makes your hairs stand on end. One of the most memorable experiences of my life was seeing Radiohead at Glastonbury back in 1997... and I’ll never forget that.

'' It made me realise how much music can really connect with people, in a way you just can’t put into words. It was like an out-of-body experience, and those are the standards I’ve set for my own music.”

Intelligent, questing and fuelled by a steely ambition, Kin is already looking like one of Manc music’s most alluring prospects this year, an artist packing as much otherworldly unpredictability as she is genre-bursting songwriting talent.

And while you’re unlikely to find her sharing her innermost neuroses on Twitter, that’s probably a good thing – here’s one songstress who demands you only judge her whilst you’re lost in giddy abandon in the middle of a frenzied moshpit.

Visceral punk phase

Kin lets out a nervous smile, before concluding: “I’m really going through my visceral punk phase at the moment.

''For me, there’s no greater feeling than leaving the stage, soaked in sweat, and knowing you’ve put absolutely everything into communicating with the audience.

''I have a responsibility to the people who have paid to see me to blow them away. And I firmly intend to do that.”

    Kin plays Blowout at Chorlton Irish Club on Friday, April 17. For more info visit link right. –