The Wyrd Sisters
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The Wyrd Sisters

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"WYRD SISTERS"

"It’s been like a family: families grow [and] expand; kids leave home; people get divorced and remarried; and that’s what we’ve gone through," remarks Kim Baryluk, the only founding member to remain in Winnipeg’s Wyrd Sisters.

In 1993, Baryluk and two other women–after meeting one another at work–began writing harmony-rich ballads that blended jazz and folk. Since then, the band has been around the world, all-the-while weathering a dizzying number of line-up changes. It’s been a journey Baryluk says she never expected, but certainly wouldn’t consider ending now.

"We’ve really matured in the sound department because, when we originally started, none of us had any musical experience, and now we have a lot of high-calibre musicians," Baryluk reflects; "None of us were expecting anything to come of this, and we were just doing this for fun. We were in our 30s when we started–we didn’t have any musical experience whatsoever–and we just accidentally shot out into the ether and entered a new world."

Now, after more than a decade in the music industry, Baryluk says she’s had so many "magical and amazing" experiences while touring–and been through so many upheavals in the band–that she can’t imagine anything stopping the girls now. "I thought [that] when Nancy [Reinhold] left....the band that it would be over because, out of the original members, it was just her and I left. I didn’t think I could do it myself, but the rest of the band really pulled together, and it was like a family coiling together after a family death," Baryluk relates. "It helped us all heal, and now we feel like we can do anything."

Things get Wyrd on Thu, Oct 30, at the Arden Theatre (5, St. Anne Street, St. Albert). - See Magazine, Oct 30,2003


"They're Wyrd and wonderful"


The Wyrd Sisters are at once impossible to pin down and seductively simple in ideology.
"You can be spiritual and be close to God, but still have a good time doing it."

That is Kim Baryluk talking, 42 years old - "I'm just peaking.'' She's the alto and mouthpiece of the band, technically a duo, but more often than not at least a trio of Baryluk, Nancy Reinhold and Kiva - Kathy Brown on her tax forms. They play Sunday at the Arden in St. Albert.

A lot of you reading this have probably seen or heard the Sisters at the folk fest. They were there again this year, vibrating the workshop stages, and this sort of menage-a-trios arrangement produces musical honey, as much fascinating fun as watching a bear going after the sticky stuff.

The amorphous nature of the band's makeup fits Baryluk's general mantra, but it's her turn to talk, really, and get some things out of the way. Particularly in the many ways the band members get off, onstage and not.

"You're talking about The Faucet Song, of course. We've never been afraid to make the sexual arena one in which we play, that's where the album title Sin and Other Salvations comes from. It's the problem with humanity today. We feel so disconnected to each other from old superstitions.

"Religion was formed as a politic to control the masses, so that they don't have the freedom to feel what they want to, to explore sexuality. We still have all these warped ideas about how bad it is. Sex is one of the greatest sources of strength and joy. So we're saying, 'Let's take all this crap, all these sins, and throw them out.' I am a sexual person, it is a wonderful, magnificent thing."

Whew. I obviously turned the right knob, and we talk about sex, polygamy and those little people, pug dogs, for a bit. But there's a religious connection that's curious about this discussion. These saucy ideas show up in their songs, and yet they consider this to be a more spiritual album than most.

"The album is filled with spiritual and religious references that are quite sincere, the whole relationship with the audience, with each other, all have to do with searching with one another, to find the earth and God, whatever form it takes. We believe in life-affirming things. We're very open about this kind of stuff.

"Every person, man or woman, is a sexual entity that I could be attracted to. Nancy's a lesbian and Kiva's straight, but none of that matters. We try and give people permission to feel good about themselves."

The show at the Arden, $22.50 a pop, will be a tub of fun, you can bet. So I'll leave off with Baryluk, talking about hitting her 40s and more. It's quite inspiring, ladies.

"I've been so excited for this for years. Another thing wrong with our culture, men peak around 19, women peak around 40 to 50, but there's this worship of young women. An older guy, down to his last bit of testosterone, chases after this young skirt. It should be the other way around. An older woman and two or three younger men, maybe a girlfriend to round it out!

" 'Polyamoury' is one of the most civilized ways to live. Your typical arrangement of two people, that's unnatural. Human beings aren't that small, we are huge emotional creative beings. There's even a woman with two husbands in Edmonton that I've met. They live as a unit, forming attachments, being a community of love. You're telling me this is somehow wrong? They're beautiful." - FISH GRIWKOWSKY


"Winnipeg's Wyrd Sisters cookin'"

When you see a Wyrd Sisters show: Don't be a Sadie.

The perennially pooped pooch travels with the trio when they're on the road and snoozes through the performance.

"Give her a sweater to lie on and she'll sleep through the show," singer/songwriter Kim Baryluk says on the phone from Toronto.

"I tend to put her to sleep on the product table at the back and she just lies there and snores."

Sadie's snoozing act is not recommended for the audience, however, as they would miss a show full of wit, enthusiasm and political comment.

"We are here for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to entertain you," Baryluk says.

"I don't think anybody after a show is unhappy or unsatisfied in any way. We mix a lot of comedy and raunch and things like that."

The Wyrd ("Weird") Sisters bring that intriguing sounding show to Nova Scotia this week, performing in Halifax, Middle Musquodoboit and Glace Bay.

The Halifax show goes at The Church on North Street Saturday at 8 p.m.; in Middle Musquodoboit Sunday at the Bicentennial Theatre and at the Savoy Studio Nov. 10 in Glace Bay.

The twice-Juno-nominated group is touring behind its album Raw Voice, released independently about a year ago.

The CD features a turn for the Sisters to more personal songs. Their previous work adopted a more folky political stance, from attacking logging in Clayoquot Sound to promoting tolerance for different sexualities.

"There's a big political bent," Baryluk says of most of their music. "We're just people and this is what we believe and obviously so does our audience because otherwise we wouldn't have one."

The Winnipeg trio has built a loyal following in western Canada with its smooth singing and jazz-tinged arrangements.

They took the name from an ancient triple goddess, "the big cheese goddess", who represents the "circular nature of life, death, rebirth, maturity," Baryluk says, adding they just happened on it by accident.

The same can be said for the band's beginnings.

Baryluk and Reinhold would get together with a few friends to play music, when another friend heard them and hired them to do a benefit gig.

"And the CBC heard that and hired us to go on a show and the Winnipeg Folk Festival hired us and we were travelling and making records," Baryluk says.

"We've been on a roll since we started."

That's not bragging, that's just reality.

Aside from the couple of Juno nods for Raw Voice and 1995's Inside the Dreaming, The Wyrd Sisters have also appeared on The Hanging Garden soundtrack and are pretty much self-supporting even though they don't have a major record deal.

"There doesn't seem to be much point to it," Baryluk says of signing with a label.

"We've done everything to date ourselves and we're financially quite successful in that way."

For example, they've paid off their first two albums, Inside the Dreaming and '93's Leave a Little Light, and coughed up $75,000 of their own dough to make Raw Voice.

"When that's paid off, if we sell an album for 15 bucks, that $15 is ours. Our first little cassette is pure gravy. Every time we sell Leave a Little Light it's like cash in our pockets.

"So there doesn't seem to be much point in handing it all over to somebody after we've done all the hard work."
- RICK CONRAD


"LINK TO MORE PRESS"

Go to:
http://www.wyrdsisters.com
for a complete press page. - WYRD SISTERS PRESS


Discography

Sin and Other Salvations
Raw Voice
Inside The Dreaming
Leave A Little Light
***Just Released!....WHOLLY***

Photos

Bio

The wyrd sisters have been inspiring audiences for 20 years. They have played most major festivals folk halls in North America, have won numerous awards, written music for film and tv, and been covered by other artists from around the globe. The greatest gift the wyrd sisters offer an audience is that they know how to inspire and connect...and they do so by leaving their audiences messages of hope and joy wrapped up in the most beautiful music.