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Katie Moore, a Montreal resident who performs in Canada and Europe, sings with a grace and depth that you may miss -- I certainly did -- the first time you spin Only Thing Worse. Her songs, both the originals and those that aren't, tend to move slowly and to stress the downbeat. After all, the very first line of the very first song is, "It's not easy getting older," and hardly anything that follows gets much cheerier. Most of the world of this CD feels like thinly populated nightclub and deserted early-morning city street -- music in a noirish landscape.
It's romantic angst so desolate as to strike like a punch to the heart. "Rush Enough" will take your breath away with its utterly unblinking, disconcertingly erotic dissection of heartbreak, jealousy and betrayal. This is the kind of song that Kris Kristofferson and the late Mickey Newbury could write in their time, except that maybe it's even better.
Moore certainly knows her Kristofferson, demonstrating as much with a skeletal, chill-boned reading of "Sunday Morning Coming Down." The other cover is Paul Siebel's great, if undeservedly less known "Any Day Woman." In 1970 and '71, Siebel cut two critically acclaimed albums for Elektra, back in the day when the "New Dylan" came along about every six months. After approximately 20 mostly extraordinary songs, however, he stopped writing. (When last heard from, he was working in a bakery or, in another account, inspecting parks for a county in Maryland.) Moore makes the song her own, approaching it as a chanteuse, not -- as Siebel did in his more extroverted arrangement -- as a honkytonk belter. I hope this isn't the last time she retrieves something from Siebel's magnificent, if abbreviated, catalogue. How about "Long Afternoons" next time? Or -- if she's willing to venture into socio-political territory-- "My Town"?
There is, however, nothing lesser in Moore's own material, which is always as emotionally true, complex, intelligent and grown-up as her songwriting heroes' was and is. Singing in a smoky, understated alto before a small folk-rock band with occasional jazz and pop accents, she conveys both emotional fragility and, paradoxically, fierce courage. The message is, if life hurts, it yet should be lived in full. In the title song she sings, "The only thing worse than having your heart broke / Is having no one willing to break it." Moore is willing to break your heart, beautifully. - Rambles.Net
After listening to Katie Moore's record, you'd think the curly-haired nymph roots herself in Alberta's snowy forests, that she finds solace in Saskatchewan's canola field. But, of course, you'd be wrong. The folk/roots/alt-country princess actually calls Montreal her home, and it's here where her dazzling jazz/cabaret undertones come into play, weaving themselves into her melancholic reflections of wide open spaces and ordinary happenings. "Only Thing Worse" is like wandering through Moore's thoughts, right from her growing pains ("Getting Older") and fears of losing inoocent insight to her personal accounts of the everyday people who go unnoticed ("The Waiter"). There's no doubting that Moore's Voice is one of a kind, a sort of angelic call in the stormy and emotional wilderness that is modern country music. If Nathan's Keri Latimer was acutally a woodland goddess, she'd sound just like Katie Moore.
December 2007 - Exclaim!
Katie Moore has been the darling of Montreal's acoustic country scene for some time.
Now the rest of the country can get in on the act, thanks to Only Thing Worse, Moore's recording debut.
Moore has a voice of quiet strength and dignity that plums deep into the heart of things
Her band, led by longtime musical companion Warren Spicer, who produces, creates a warm background of country chmaber music with guitar, steel, fiddle, piano, bass and drums, along with trumpet and flugelhorn for texture.
Most of the album's 10 first-reate, slice of life songs were either written or co-written by Moore. However, she proves a senstitive interpreter or Kris Kristofferson's SUnday Morning Coming Down.
October 11, 2007 - 4 the Record.com roots reviews
Lorsqu'elle ne collabore pas avec Socalled, Katie Moore en profite pour écrire des chansons imprégnées de peurs intimes, de faiblesses amouresuses et d'angoisses nocturnes. En chantier depuis déjaà un certain temps, Only Thing Worse brille d'abord grace à la voix, aussi calme qui'introspective, de la chanteuse "country fold" montréalaise. D'une beauté plutôt creepusculaire, cet album, essentiellement constitué de ballades acoustques, se veut l'expression courageuse d'une femme qui tente de faire la paix avec elle-même. Produit par Warren Spicer (du group Plants and Animals), l'ensemble se laisse guider par une retenue assez impressionante. Il suffit d'un peu de piano, de guitare our de violon pour que la magie opère. De plus, les textes de Moore sont directs et lélancolique pour la plupart. A la fin, la dame se permet même une reprise de Sunday Morning Coming Down du célèbre Kris Kristofferson. Vraiment impeccable. (David Cantin), October 2007 - La Presse
Discography
Recordings
Only Thing Worse (Borealis Records, 2007)
Katie Moore (independent release, 2005)
Collaborations
Yonder Hill by Yonder Hill (June 2008).
Ghettoblaster by Socalled (Label Bleu, JDub records 2007). “You are Never Alone” and “These are the Good Old Days,” featuring Fred Wesley.
Close to Paradise by Patrick Watson (Secret City, 2006); 2007 Polaris Award. “The Storm.”
Parc Avenue by Plants and Animals (Secret City, 2008). “Mercy” and “Faeire Dance.”
Strange Biology by Dave Macleod (Ships at Night, 2006).
New Gentleman’s Shuffle by Timber (Ships at Night, 2005).
Photos
Bio
Katie Moore is an uncompromising songstress whose haunting music defies quick categorization; it lies somewhere in the no-man’s-land between folk, alt-country and bluegrass. Built around a persuasive simplicity, each song is anchored by her voice.
“I often get asked how long I have been singing for, and I don’t know how to answer that,” she says. “How long have you been breathing? It’s just a natural thing I love to do.” That much is obvious – enchanting, earthy, pure, real, open; these are some of its descriptors.
“Only Thing Worse,” released in the Fall of 2007 on Borealis Records, is a collection of mostly original songs produced by collaborator/friend Warren Spicer. Some songs, including “The Waiter” and “Under the Bed,” are stripped down, bare numbers involving only Katie and Warren, a guitar and tinkle of piano. Others, such as opener “Getting Older,” were recorded live off the floor with a full band but manage to sustain the intimacy that pervades the record. In 2006 she was nominated for the ECHO Songwriter Prize for “Rush Enough.” The prize is a SOCAN initiative to spotlight Canada’s up-and-coming independent songwriters.
Over the last few years Katie’s natural, effortless timbre has resonated well with fellow musicians. Highlights in her musical career to-date include her performance on and co-writing credits for Socalled’s hit in France “You are Never Alone,” the video for which recently received its 1.5-millionth hit on YouTube. She recorded “The Storm,” a duet with Patrick Watson on his Polaris-winning, Juno-nominated album “Close to Paradise.” She also performed on “These are the Good Old Days,” a Socalled collaboration with Fred Wesley (trombone player and horn arranger for James Brown’s JBs in the 1970s).
She also plays in Yonder Hill, a Canadian bluegrass band made up of Montreal’s finest players.
Since 2005 Katie has spent about 12 weeks each year touring Europe with Socalled as well as Feist-producer Gonzales. She has shared the stage with Jason Molina, Fire and Wine, Fred Wesley, David Krakauer, Gonzales, Calexico, Irvine Fields, to name a few.
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