Saturday, October 27, 2007

My Latest Musical Crush ...

... is on Kathryn Calder of The New Pornographers / Immaculate Machine. Having heard an interview with her, demonstrating wit and quirk, as well as a clear, melodic voice, won me over.

She related a story about translating a previous album's lyrics to French and re-recording and re-releasing it, because of boredom. Recently, a podcast host made an offhand joke that Immaculate Machine's newest album would be in Chinese. So they recruited a graduate student to translate the lyrics of their song "Dear Confessor" into Mandarin, learned the pronunciation, and "Wo Xiang Tanbai" was created.

Her commitment to the vision of multicultural diversity and the principle of seeing how far one can take an inside joke are character traits that I look for in my friends.

In my hall of fame, she joins the likes of auspicious sirens Amy Millan, Neko Case, Emily Haines, and Sarah Slean, as well as a couple of fellows I might "cross the street for": John K. Samson and Michael Stipe.

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