Kim McMechan
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Music
Press
"What keeps McMechan out of the coffee-house ghetto are the album’s little touches. She’s not afraid to augment her understated acoustic playing with soft-focus accordion and warm electric guitar, and she avoids easy rhymes...
Best of all, unlike 90 percent of folk-oriented grrrls with guitars, she doesn’t sound like a poor woman’s Jewel. As with Kimya Dawson, Fiona Apple, and Ani DiFranco, there’s something about McMechan’s voice that’s powerfully unique, and she uses it to maximum effect..." - Mike Usinger, Georgia Straight (Vancouver)
"The album's nine tracks reveal a gentle, angelic, almost child-like voice, not unlike that of Sarah Harmer's, singing sometimes melancholy, sometimes uplifing songs of life experiences. The lyrics have an intimate, poetic style to them, no surprise, coming from a poet turned songwriter."
- Mike Youds, Kamloops Daily News
McMechan is definitely a poet at heart...<she>has a gift for words and imagery — a trip to the diary section of her website further proves this..."
- Uptown Magazine
“… Another song penned by Kim McMechan, Canada’s best-kept secret.”
- Keith Giles, christrock.com (Toronto)
"Outstanding! Girl, you make conversation with music!"
- Jane Eamon, Muse's Muse Magazine
“What gets me about Kim McMechan’s music is her ability to just make everything disappear. She has a knack for saying what needs to be said. Raw, honest emotion…”
- Jeff McCann, christrock.com (Toronto)
“Kim sees the world through a poet’s eyes.”
- Trevor Haug, Producer of Streams Music, North Sutton, CA.
Discography
'Little Grey House', 2006 Kim McMechan
Independent released
“Change me on the Inside’, 2003, Best of Vineyard Music Canada, (international distribution, VMG, CMC Distribution) (Into Your Presence)
‘Foolscap’ 2003 Compilation CD, Rik Leaf/Kim McMechan, Independent Release
(Fly, Another Day, Hold Me Now, World Pass By, Annie's Song)
'Fall On Me', 2002 Compilation CD, Vineyard Music USA, (internationally distributed, CMC, Distribution Canada, EMI, U.S., World, BMG Entertainment, COPYCARE, Sweden, UK, Brazil, Spirit Music, South Africa): I Am Yours, Could I, performed "I Surrender" by Mark James.
‘The Mystery’, 2002 Compilation CD, Vineyard Music Canada, (internationally distributed, CMC Distribution Canada, EMI, U.S., World, BMG Entertainment, COPYCARE, Sweden, U.K., Spirit Music, South Africa) (Find Your Way To Me, Show Me The Way, How I Love You So)
'Art', 1997 Compilation CD, Remnant Records (internationally distributed, (Vineyard Music Group, CMC Distribution) (I Am Yours, Bittersweet, Fall At Your Feet, Reckless Abandon, performed Now And Forever More, by Nathan Rieger)
‘Fragrant Oil’, 1998 Compilation CD, Howling Prairie Records (internationally distributed, Vineyard Music Group, CMC Distribution) (Dwelling Place, performance of Take My Heart by John Janzen)
Photos
Bio
Kim McMechan spent most of her childhood years pretending to practice her minuets when what she was really doing was writing bad songs that fell somewhere in style between John Denver and Abba. (You can’t imagine what a terrible combination this was.) She was also obsessed with the Minipops for probably much longer than should have been allowed. Her first attempt at forming a band was in grade 5 when she gathered some of the neighborhood girls together to teach them 3-part harmony to “We’re the Kids of America” even though they were all Canadians.
Things have improved a great deal since then. Kim received some notable success a few years back when 12 of her songs were included in a series of 5 compilation albums through Vineyard Music Group. The records went on to collectively sell over 90,000 copies worldwide, and garnered Kim radio play on stations across North America & Australia and fan mail from around the world. 3 of her songs were translated into Spanish and several were rerecorded by other artists, such as John Buller.
Also a published poet and essayist, she writes, “beautifully wrought tunes”, frequently described by critics as "haunting" and "open-hearted". Her voice teeters somewhere between gritty and lonesome, & is chock full of emotive purity. In 2000, Toronto review hailed Kim and her songwriting as "Canada's best-kept secret."
In late 2005, after circumstances took her out of Winnipeg where she had been living for 7 years, performing and studying creative writing, she returned to her native BC. In 2006, she recorded an EP of 8 small songs entitled "Little Grey House", and released it independently in January of 2006.
"Little Grey House is a recording of tiny, spacious, beautifully melodic tunes 'obviously written by a poet at heart...' " (Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg), Two of the song took home the songwriting award at the Shuswap International Writers' Festival in June of 2005.
More recently, Kim has garnered a wider fan base through her live shows and frequent airing on CBC Radio. Little Grey House continues to make waves on Campus Radio Stations, coming up consistently in the top 10 on play lists. Her song "Parachute" received 2nd place in the Songbird West Songwriting Competition, and in September 2007, she took home the award for "Best New Artist" at the Okanagan Music Awards.
More recently, she has joined forces with Canadian painter and producer Danny McBride (former guitar player for Chris deBurgh) and is working on a full-length album set for release in the spring of 2010.
Links
