MAKING TRACKS: Sonya Kitchell

 

After her 2008 album, This Storm, suggested that Pioneer Valley native Sonya Kitchell was forsaking jazz for a more pop-rock approach (and a fine one at that), the singer does a 180-degree turn with her latest recording, Convict of Conviction, a six-song EP of gorgeously rendered chamber pop. Piano has replaced guitar as Kitchell’s own instrument, and a string quartet has replaced a rock band as her backup, forefronting Kitchell’s ever-evolving, insinuating vocals, which now sound incredibly dusky, mature, and confident for someone who still is only twenty-one-years-old. After a year on the road with Herbie Hancock (as part of his Joni Mitchell tribute project) and touring with jam-band trio the Slip, Kitchell returned to Shelburne Falls, Mass., to write these quiet ballads and torch songs, which connect her jazz origins to progressive classical song. Credit Kitchell with following the lead of her restless muse and capturing her own moment in time. Catch Kitchell performing her new material with the Brooklyn String Quartet at Memorial Hall in Shelburne Falls on Sunday, October 10, at 7:30 (51 ., Shelburne Falls, Mass., ). [SEPTEMBER 2010]

 

THE GOODS

Sonya Kitchell
Convict of Conviction
429 Records