Soulful voices, bluesy piano, the most perfect drums, funky bass and beautiful poetry make this album lush and danceable and introspective.

9 MP3 Songs
POP: with Live-band Production, URBAN/R&B: Soul



Details:
Review: Kristi Martel - Brave Enough (Sealed Lip Records)
"There's this thing Kristi Martel does with her voice. The first time I played 'Brave Enough,' it shut me up and made me say, 'Damn!' That's just her voice. As a pianist and songwriter, Martel does not shy from her feminism. She seems to shy from nothing. Her voice sometimes evokes Bjork's but it is more soulful, more post-punk Laura Nyro. She looks head-on at issues like feminine body image and self-esteem, sex, dying, the power of community, and the challenges and favor of intimacy. But as the liner notes wisely recommend, 'play this thing loud.' 'Brave Enough' is part groove diary, part social exegesis, and a whole lot of fun."
-- Cesca Waterfield, Expository Magazine

When Kristi Martel was three she sang to salt and pepper shakers atop tables in restaurants.

Her family encouraged her to do this.

Everyone in the restaurant would clap.

So she kept singing and making up harmonies and began piano lessons with a strong desire to be a famous musician.

Today, Kristi Martel is an avant-pop piano diva with a sweet presence, stunning vocals, intricate piano rhythms, and fearless songwriting.

"...love emanates from every note." - Vienna Teng

"Incomparable!" - Utah Phillips

Award-winning songwriter Kristi Martel grew up in New England and left in 1990 to earn an ASCAP grant and two music degrees (Bard and Mills College) in NY and CA before returning home to RI in 2003. The visionary soulsinger choreographed performance art and composed vocal music to tell stories about relationships, cultural identity, body image, and body memory before beginning her touring and recording career in 2000.

Kristi's piano playing combines her love of blues dissonance and syncopation with her classical training. Her voice is at once sweet and bitter, able to leap and soar, whisper and rattle, expressive of any emotion she chooses and fluid throughout her 4-octave range. She is visionary in her lyrics and composition, writing her prayers for personal solace and quirky relationship narratives in the same breath.

In August 2003 Kristi's life partner and music collaborator Littlebird died by suicide, and Kristi has been writing her fifth CD since. Her new (fourth) CD, The Mule, on indie label Sealed Lip Records, is a project long in the making that seems to integrate her through-composed, performance art, and soulsinger selves into one work.

discography:
The Mule (LP 2004)
bound (single 2003)
brave enough (LP 2001)
give me a little... (EP 2000)