Artist Kathy Kennedy has been creating for over 30 years. Art and music have always come natural to her. Her latest piece, “Vowel Jams”, an album, signifies a rise in energy with its rhythmic vocalizations and unique sounds. Influenced by women, social justice causes, and multiple different art mediums, Kennedy’s innovative art is unlike anything you’ve ever heard or seen. To learn more about Kathy Kennedy and her new album, read on.

Where are you based?
Montreal.

What inspired you to pursue art and music?
I guess I never really had a choice. It seemed like what I needed to… do from very early on.

Congratulations on your new album “Vowel Jams” coming out October 31st! What inspired you to create this album? What can listeners expect to hear from it?
Vowel Jams is kind of my first real solo album. Even though I've been making music professionally with the voice for over 30 years now. Mostly, I've been a choral director, a composer, and a sound artist. And mostly my work has been about giving others access to vocalizing in as many different ways as possible —as in as many unpredictable ways as possible.

I've made many pieces for large groups of singers in public space, united together through low-watt radio transmitter which I use to broadcast the soundtrack, over which I ask people to sing.

But this release is a series of little loops that I've played around with for my own personal pleasure starting during the pandemic. I just wanted to take those Loops that I found interesting for… a variety of reasons and work on them just a little. By putting them into different contexts throwing some field recordings and some text over them to create some… unlikely combinations that might be a refreshing alternative to the standard pop song. I hope it's something that people… enjoy listening to.

The music on this album includes very rhythmic vocalizations and sounds. What inspired the usage of this style?
I like… groove a lot… for a variety of reasons, because it raises your energy. There’s something inherently sacred about groove in my opinion. I come from the free improv, the noise, the contemporary and the sound art world, so this music is a bit unlikely for those audiences… I would think. And in some ways, I feel like I've… indulged my guilty pleasures by making some nice beats. That seemed to dance and play together in a simple way.

In 1992, you joined a women’s choir in Montreal called Choeur Maha. Did your time with the choir influence your work on this album? If so, how?
Well, in fact, I founded that choir with gallery director Sue Schnee who was a singing student of mine. She and a few other artists had been asking me to form a choir, because I had already been leading a church choir for years, and had begun doing it informally in different “arty” contexts. I ended up composing a lot of the music since I couldn’t find that many scores written for women’s choir that we liked. Most of the singers were visual artists, Poets, people with specialties in many different disciplines, and so we made these great daring hybrid pieces. We made flash mobs before there was a name for them, we made performance art pieces with low watt radio, and we remade pop songs with intricate choral arrangements long before it became commonplace. So all that was a warmup for this album.

You utilize a plethora of different art mediums to communicate your work and point of view. How do each of these mediums contribute to your overall voice as an artist? How does using different mediums help enhance your work?
I began as a visual arts student, in printmaking, lithography and textiles. And it was actually my art profs who advised me that I was already making a living as a musician, and it just seemed to come so easily to me that why didn't I just do that? I still feel like an artist using voice as my device.

One central medium present throughout your work is the human voice. How does the human voice inspire you? Why is the human voice so important to you and your work?
When I started, I was interested in how the voice is mediated through technology in contemporary society.. so, I was working with telecommunication devices and radios. I've also been interested in placing individual voices in public spaces or other unlikely spaces. Most generally, I’m trying to problematize the social codification of the voice. There is (and always has been) so much policing of the female voice… traces can be found all the way back to Aristotle. I could go on ad libitum on this topic but suffice it to say that my work is about discovering and deepening the relationship between the voice and its social, political and physical environment. I’m really loving working with the vocal pedal and effects for how it frees up my voice.

How do you tie in feminist activism into your work?
Creating the women’s choir and participating regularly in all manner of women’s rights events for 25 years has had quite an impact. The structure of governance has reflected those principles. And in 1995 I cofounded a new media center for women called Studio XX, which still receives funding from all levels of government in Canada. They changed their name recently to Ada-X to be more inclusive of non-binary people.

Many of your radio collaborative performances are associated with social justice causes and you recently completed an audio composition called “Song for Palestine” that has been performed at several free festivals in Montreal. Why is connecting your work to social justice causes important to you?
Quite simply, I can’t imagine how one could not speak out and use one’s art to do so.

You just put out a new book, Singing Off The Grid. Can you tell us about your book?
It's a retrospective book about my work since the early 1990’s. A lot of the work is best served by some contextualization or explanation. It’s a nice book about orality with drawings, scores and QR codes with links to videos and recordings, in English and French.

What advice do you have for young girls looking to explore art and music?
Take risks. Makes sounds that may not be popular, but that please you. Back to that social codification of the voice issue.

Are there any upcoming projects you are currently working on that we should be on the lookout for?
Nothing at the moment but keep an ear out for a vocal ensemble called Phth that I’m part of. Very badass.

What is your motto in life?
Music has literally saved my life through these times… Singing, in particular, is just so good for your body. It lowers your cortisol, stimulates oxytocin and serotonin and regulates your heart rate. Just think of the pain that the blues were born out of and the sense of release that it affords. Also, when I’m at my very lowest, I think of someone to help out or just give some time to.

Please list any websites and/or social media that you would like Jejune to promote:
My album Vowel Jams is available at https://kathykennedy.bandcamp.com/album/vowel-jams

And my book is available at https://www.kathykennedy.ca

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Kathy Kennedy's Abstract Art