Kate Fenner fights to stay afloat amid waves of devastating loss on her latest album Dead Reckoning — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The fourth solo outing from the veteran Canadian singer-songwriter, former Bourbon Tabernacle Choir member and lionhearted truth teller, Dead Reckoning carries the existential weight of life, death and grief on its shoulders. Out of struggle and self-reflection, Fenner has created an album beyond simplistic definitions. Her uniquely powerful voice is haunting and fragile throughout. In the tradition of artists like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith, this is serious music dealing with intensely human themes.
“When my friend Mike was dying in December of 2019,” she says of the album’s origins, “I came across an Amy Hempel poem about the failure of language when faced with things like death:
“At the end, I wanted to comfort him.
But what I said was, Sing to it. The
Arab proverb: When danger approaches, sing to it.”
“Mike was not the first loss, nor was he to be the last, in the past few years of my life,” she continues. “My parents went, naturally; but it was the consecutive losses of my friends — bandmates, soulmates, mentors — that stung and bewildered; each one barely 50 years old when cruel variations on cancer made their way through my friends’ bodies, turning off all the lights.
“In some cases, I was fortunate enough to be with them through this process, allowed to love and care for them at this most intimate juncture. In every case, I was tempted by the idea that I could make it better for them. That I could give them something to take with them, and they could leave something behind for me to hold, something slight but durable to set me in my life. In the end, all I felt I did was walk them to the threshold and watch them disappear. The term ‘dead reckoning,’ apart from it signifying in this case just what it sounds like, is a navigational strategy to recalculate your position by estimating the direction, the drift, and the distance you’ve travelled.
“I know life by definition is contoured by the loss of it. This time feels particularly burdened with loss, real and impending; maybe every time has felt that way. I’m left with love as the only defence — loving people and letting them know they were loved by you. Dead Reckoning really is a reckoning during a period of seemingly endless loss and an attempt to determine a ‘way of living that is not waiting,’ as I recently heard poet Jorie Graham say in an interview. Singing is my way of loving, loving even danger. Here I sing to my friends, my parents; their ghosts; and to you. I hope you can hear it.”
Now living in New York City, Fenner fronted the Canadian alt-rock band Bourbon Tabernacle Choir in the 1980s and ’90s. After its dissolution, she continued performing her bandmate Chris Brown. In 2000, she toured with The Tragically Hip for Music @ Work. She released the solo album Horses And Burning Cars in 2003, followed by Magnet, produced by Brown. In 2004, Fenner opened for B.B. King on tour. At this time, she also began to sing in performance pieces for the artist Joan Jonas. In 2017, she released Middle Voice, recorded with long-time collaborator Tony Scherr and featuring Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Norah Jones, Brown and Scherr.
Listen to Dead Reckoning and watch its videos below, and follow Kate Fenner on Facebook and Instagram.
