A New Favourite - Kina Grannis

Five days ago, it was a lazy, rainy afternoon and I’d curled up on my ‘pc chair’. It was an ideal time to explore long forgotten songs on my hard drive and friend’s recommendations that I’d carelessly relegated to the “listen to em’ later” folder. Spotted a youtube video of American singer-cum-guitarist Kina Grannis, of her new single “Valentine”, and lo! A fan was born! Almost immediately, I showed the link to Shruti, and there we were… enraptured by her delightful voice.

An eager Google search later, I discovered that this dainty, talented young singer/songwriter of cocktail origin had created a web-wide fan base with a gazillion uploads. Now, it so turns out, that Kina started posting amateur videos of her original pop acoustic compositions on Youtube in 2007. Her first video, "Message From Your Heart," won the Crash the Super Bowl contest, which landed her a contract with Interscope Records, which she………(wait for it)…….dumped ( :O :O :O ) in 2009 to become an independent artist. Now that’s gumption!!  Meanwhile, she managed to market herself very cleverly by meshing her personality with her music, with her simple innocent looks, an honest voice, the “Digg Song”, candid videos featuring a cute “girl with the guitar” motif at the start, random doodles like crayon filled smiling suns in the background, weeny pet snakes, and the recent loss of her grandfather's ukulele while touring... stuff that makes you want to go “awwww”! Plus, it also helps when you’re pretty and have a set of even prettier sisters humming seconds along.

What started out as a blog post casually faffing about one or two songs has (thanks to my fan girl enthu/obsessive tendencies) become a full blown awe fest of Kina’s brand new album “Stairwells”- an ode to the college refuge where she spent hours writing songs and singing to herself. I have not purchased the CD L, I’m commenting purely on the basis of her uploads that took hours of buffering.

Stairwells brings to us fresh and soulful music from the heart with moving tunes, lilting chords and meaningful lyrics exploring themes of hope, love, finding oneself, breaking up, personal growth, and joy. The feel good factor of this album is its USP. All fourteen songs are beautifully written and well delivered.

“The World in Front of Me” is a light and breezy ‘Good Morning’ song that makes me want to prance across a sunny green meadow feeling the wind on my face. Its sheer simplicity makes it likeable.

 “Strong enough” is a nicely arranged track with powerful guitar playing and singing. I prefer Kina’s live rendition on home video than the album version, because the amateur one is interspersed with strumming of varying intensity that blends beautifully with the theme and flow of the whole song.

“Valentine” is a cute romantic track which, thankfully, lacks the uber-soppy quality of some of the more popular love songs. Heartfelt lyrics and music that you can rock softly to are sure to push this one on the next song compilation CDs for 14^th Feb. The official music video is a definite must watch and it leaves you with a warm feeling inside.

“Stay Just a Little” is a beautifully crafted wistful song about broken love. It has a unique tune which has Kina’s voice oozing raw emotion.

“Together” is a serene playful song with a catchy melody that makes the head bob and light hearted words that speak of a memorable dream.

“Make Me Believe” tests Kina’s vocal range effectively with its drops and keen falsettos, although the lyrics didn’t make me go wow.

The other songs are great too, but there were few that didn’t strike a chord with me. “Stars Falling Down” sounded winsome and immature with a tacky background score. “In My Arms” (a hot favourite everywhere) and “Please Remember” didn’t linger on in my mind minutes after I heard them.

Nevertheless, each song threw me into a different mood...happy, perky, sentimental, hopeful, rebellious, romantic or plain carefree!! Each song is mercifully untarnished by unnecessary background music and technical touch-up that is usually employed to obscure sub-standard vocals. Kina’s music reminds me of the minimalist heartfelt compositions of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the movie "Once"….a movie that churned out unforgettable tracks with unpretentious guitar and piano pieces playing along Glen and Marketa’s natural vocals, bringing to life the lucidly & powerfully worded stories of their lives. Crisp guitar playing, feel-good lyrics that anyone can relate to and hummable melodies make “Stairwells” a compilation to reckon with. Kina’s voice brims over in earnest with intensity through all her songs. Stiff competition for Taylor Swift! All in all, it’s great pop acoustic music for all those ears jaded with the over-synthesized Rihannas, Britneys and Keshas of this day, mine included.

It’s heartening to know that someone armed with just a guitar, a solid voice, a dream in her eyes and a burning passion for music in her soul, can win millions of hearts with her honest music. This is stuff inspiration is made of!

Our first blog

Introductions are in order and so, we'd like to tell you a little bit about ourselves..

I, the writer (Supriya), would first like to start by telling you something about my sweet sister...

At a mere 14 years, Shruti is a fiesty and talented musician. She started training to play the piano at the tender age of five and has been also learning to play the classical guitar for the past two years. She is trained in Hindustani vocals and is proficient with the Indian flute. A 9th grade student, Shruti has a midas touch over any instrument she attempts to play. Her undying passion for music and encouragement from a proud set of parents has made her the cynosure of all ears at musical events held at school and the community. When she is not jamming, head-bobbing to her ipod nano or studying, she reads fantasy fiction, plays basket-ball, moons over "Edward Cullen" and beats her own high score on fable and super mario!

And now, because it weirds me out to blow my own trumpet, I'm referring to myself in the third person...so here goes...

Supriya, 25, is a practising clinical psychologist, a trained hindustani vocalist and harmonium player. With music interests ranging from Ghazals, Old Hindi Film Music, Sufi Music, Hindustani Classical to Hip Hop, Rock, Dubstep, Trance, Electronica, R&B, House n Techno, she is an avid music enthusiast. She has a working knowledge of the guitar and piano and has been a part of various intercollege musical competitions. Apart from music, music and music, Supriya also loves to sketch, scribble random notes on her scratch pad, go off on adventure hikes, read voraciously on neuroscience, psychology and mainstream fiction; watch movies or whip up a fancy meal.

(Weird part done with...normal tone of conversation resumes)

We came together to form a two member-informal-amateur band in late August 2010 and have decided to call ourselves "S Augmented" to realize our long awaited dream of making music together.

We hope to share snippets of our amateur recordings, those of our own creation and also of great artists. We also hope to review/critique/discuss artists, albums and songs that touched our hearts. And to add a personal twist to the whole deal, we'd like to share interesting blogs, articles, research writings related to music :)

Here's to a long & succesful haul....