Events downtown

Apr 30

Kaia Kater w/ CRYS
Location: 181 State St., Portland, Maine 04101, US
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Event website

ADVANCE PURCHASE: $15
AT THE DOOR: $20
All tickets will incur an additional $4.50 surcharge.
7pm doors – 8pm show
ALL AGES

Montreal-born Grenadian-Canadian Kaia Kater’s jazz-fueled voice and deft songcraft have garnered acclaim from NPR’s Tiny Desk, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and No Depression. Kaia draws on influences rooted in Quebec, the Caribbean, and Appalachia, all of which reflect the diversity of her background; her family’s deep ties to the Canadian folk music scene; her college years spent soaking up Appalachian music in West Virginia and her father’s experience growing up in Grenada, arriving in Canada in 1986, after the U.S. invasion.

Kaia released her first EP Old Soul (2013) when she was just out of high school. Since then, she’s gone on to release three more albums, Sorrow Bound (2015), Nine Pin (2016) and Grenades (2018). For the JUNO-nominated and Polaris Music Prize long-listed Grenades, Kaia leaned into a wide array of sounds and styles in order to convey a broad range of emotions and topics, most notably her Caribbean ancestry and her father’s experience as a refugee in Canada. In 2020, Kaia took part in the Slaight Music Residency at the Canadian Film Center, released a new single, and wrote original music for The Porter (BET+ 2022). Her next album, recorded in Montreal with Joe Grass as co-producer, will land in October 2023.

“…plaintive, mesmerizing…writes and performs with the skill of a folk-circuit veteran…” -Rolling Stone

“You want some authenticity in your folk music or bluegrass – I give you Kaia Kater.” –No Depression

“A star in the making…“
–Folk Alley

“…One of the most remarkable Canadian folk records in some time…Kater’s music is somehow ancient and brand new at the same time.” –Tom Power, CBC Radio 2

“Sorrow Bound is a remarkably assured debut album which both honours tradition and declares Kater’s credentials as a distinctive, original artist.” -Steve Hunt – fRoots Magazine(UK) – October 2015

There was a woman, known simply as Miss Jim, who played guitar and drank whiskey deep in the hills. Her lyrics and musicality made her a legend in the countryside. Decades later, her great-granddaughter picked up an old guitar, and followed the calling of her roots. Walking the line between past and future, acoustic and electric, traditional folk and cosmic country, CRYS draws from iconic influences like Patsy Cline, Curtis Mayfield, Elizabeth Cotten, and The Chicks. Her soulful, melodic voice carries vulnerable lyrics through songs that alternate between yearning and grooving, as she connects to listeners – and the countryside of her heritage- by playing banjo and hollow body guitar.