Captain’s log supplemental. Yesterday I wrote about seeing Kaia Kater. I planned it out and then forgot to include my favorite thought about her. As I was listening I tried to analyze how her voice felt. You read that right, not sounded but felt. I often see instrumental music moving through or filling space. I’m not talking about synesthesia; this is at a higher mental level. It’s a way I interpret sounds, not directly experience them. I know I’m not the only one as Mel Tormé was known as “The Velvet Fog.” That might even be my inspiration. Richard Cuccaro of Acoustic Live said that John Platt had a voice like liquid silk. Al Parrish of Tanglefoot’s voice was described as “halfway between melted chocolate and sex.” Kaia has a bit of the satin tones of Aoife O’Donovan but that’s off the mark. Finally hit him me. Kaia has the voice of the sirens. I’m tempted to ask her the famous question, “What song did the Sirens sing?” I’d be sooner to ask if she didn’t say during the show that she never read the Iliad. Of course that doesn’t mean she didn’t read the Odyssey which is where the tale of the Sirens is found. I could also see Kaia having the voice of a Selkie. Selkies (also spelled silkies, sylkies, selchies) or selkie folk (Scots: selkie fowk) meaning ‘seal folk'[a] are mythological beings capable of therianthropy, changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin. They are found in folktales and mythology originating from the Northern Isles of Scotland. There are numerous Scottish songs about the Selkie, perhaps Kaia should sing one of those. Sirens are often depicted as mermaids, that is inaccurate. The Greeks described them as having the bodies of birds. The cover picture is an ancient Greek depiction of Odysseus and the Sirens. Oddly I don’t think Kaia’s voice sounds like a mermaid’s. Do not ask me to explain that. This is my brain working at a level below consciousness. Back to Sirens for a bit. Kaia is a friend of one of my other favorite singer/songwriters, Jean Rohe. Jean has not just read the Odyssey she has worked on a folk opera someone based on it, in very much the same way that James Joyce’s Ulysses is. If Jean ever returns to it, she should have Kaia sing the part of the Sirens.
This tells you much more about me than it does Kaia, but that’s only fair as I know more about me.
Wise Madness 