Take it to the Bridgeburner

Kit Soden fuses his folk music to a fantasy luminary’s words

Montrealer Kit Soden’s musical endeavours cover a lot of ground. “From classical to modern art-music to folk,” he says. “I take what I experience and work at interpreting it musically. As a songwriter, the lyrics inspire my compositions. I tend to fuse styles, using the necessary colours of the musical, orchestral and timbral palettes to bring the words to life.” A particularly interesting fusion is that of Soden’s music and voice with the words of Canadian-born fantasy author Steven Erickson, a superstar in the field of swords and sorcery thanks to his rich and challenging epic series of novels, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. “My sister Emily introduced me to [the series],” Soden recalls. “I was amazed at his imagination. The scope of his storytelling is huge. His poems, at the beginning of some chapters, are always so descriptive. They seemed like they were already songs. “It did not dawn on me to write a song with his poetry until mid-way through the seventh book. Without giving away part of the story here, it was a powerful moment, and it inspired me to write ‘Lay of the Bridgeburners,’ my first song interpretation of his poems, in November 2007.”

This didn’t go unnoticed by Erickson himself, whose fans’ user-forum comments led him to Soden on YouTube. “It turned out we both were trying to contact each other. We got in touch in May 2009, and he sent me some unpublished poetry to add to the Malazan poems I was already working with. From that point, I recorded demos and sent them to him, until I had a full album’s worth of material.”

That album is the recently released Like a Dancer Unstrung, which he’ll be touring through Europe in the spring with his partner, violinist Aliza Thibodeau (McGill-based roots unit the Bombadils also play on the record—“A great live band,” says Soden, “as well as a professional studio group”). At the same time, Soden has another full album of work with Erickson that’s soon to be recorded.

“He gives me a lot of creative freedom in my interpretations of his words. He also is appreciative of my edits, in terms of turning his poetry into lyrics.” ■

WITH ALIZA THIBODEAU AND THE BOMBADILS AT GRUMPY’S
ON SATURDAY, FEB. 5, 10 P.M., FREE

Short URL: http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/?p=18537