Kira Lynn Cain

Kira Lynn Cain’s is the music of dreams.

Soundtracks to her self-imagined movies.

Images of sparse western landscapes, hallucinatory and romantic places, understated violence and suspense, mystery, and strange melancholy, all sway through lullaby-like surrealist torch music. The sacred becomes the profane and the profane sacred.

In describing her, as Kira would herself, bay area writer Todd LaVoie wrote:
“Look, I’m not going to say ethereal enchantress Kira Lynn Cain creates music ideal for David Lynch films, but put it this way: if I were to make a movie featuring a severed ear, a hopped-up Dennis Hopper, and velvet of a certain hue, I’d probably want to keep her number on speed dial, if you follow me. Cain’s after-hours torch songs float slow-drifting bubbles up to the rafters with elegantly crafted tales of yearning, but there’s something about the brooding sounds of her guitar that suggests once those bubbles go pop, all hell’s gonna rain down. One listen to “White as a Dove” –a Portuguese fado for the Twin Peaks set –and you’ll be transfixed.”

It’s difficult to pinpoint or even find descriptors in language to explain Cain. LaVoie comes as close as anyone could. But even then there’s something left wanting; an explanation of sorts. The Ideal Hunter leaves many questions to be answered. Too many to be answered. The listener necessarily feels compelled to repeatedly listen and find them in the record. The lush arrangements and vocals coupled with the utterly hallucinatory lyrics become more than simply pleasing to the ear. It becomes necessary.

Kira Lynn has shared the stage with many notables such as Tindersticks, Rykarda Parasol, Joanna Newsome, and also appears on World Without End and the Gunplay EP both by Bob Frank and John Murry and produced by Tim Mooney, Marabelle Phoenix’s Self Titled sophomore release (2010), as well as Jeffrey Luck Lucas’ forthcoming album, Lion’s Jaw, produced by Desmond Shea.