Musical dresses, circular doors, chirping toy birds, sonic hallucinations: in Kirsty Almeida we've the return, at last, of the enigmatic true eccentric. Her music (like her life) is magical, the kind of radiant soul-revue sophistication that's been gone so long it suddenly feels brand new; crystalline vocals untouched by meddling sheen, live instrumentation tinkling across your synapses, the glowing warmth of classic song-writing pulsing like amber jewels.
Her debut album Pure Blue Green was produced by the mythological Youth (U2, Primal Scream, The Verve, Beth Orton, one half of electronic duo The Fireman with Sir Paul McCartney). The first time Youth heard her songs, he was astonished and told her "this is really well-rounded, amazing, sophisticated song-writing'". " I didn't even know who he was," admits Kirsty, " The first time I met him, at his house, his 76 year old mother answered the door wearing a bomber jacket and she was really posh and really lovely and heavily into very intense hip-hop. She said 'I'm really sorry, Youth is asleep'. So I thought Youth was a youth, like 19 years old."
An experimental craftswoman, Kirsty customises her own instruments and creates her own stage-wear, collaborating today with internationally renowned stylist Mrs Jones (Kylie's white jump-suit, Brandon Flowers' feathery epaulettes), and is currently working on a musical dress specifically for the forthcoming live shows. "We're gonna make a big
ball-gown train out of spoons and forks and knives and attach little bells all the way down," announces Kirsty. "So I can actually play my own dress. Great!".
For years, Kirsty has lived in a parallel dimension, making both music and a living on quietly productive sidelines; today, she runs a musical collective, Odbod, in her Manchester hometown (currently commissioned to record two tracks for the independent London film project 'Patagonia') while her name as a solo artist has turned from underground murmur to word-of-mouth phenomenon. In 2010, she just might be a pioneer. "In this new decade I think there'll be a lot more people like me coming through,"
she concludes. "A lot more artists who are doing this because they love music, not because they want to get to the top or be a fashionable person. I think everything will be a bit more real. I don't mean we lose the fantasy world, that should always be there, but so many songs today are about production and audio glitter. It would be good to be part of a truly magical scene."
