First solo show for Australian import
A slow and full integration is what Kiera Dall’Osto has accomplished with the Prince George music scene. She completed her debut album about a year ago, but tonight is the first time she’ll be seen in a solo music setting in this city, even though she has been building a national profile right under our local noses.
We can thank Rotary International for the gift of Dall’Osto. You know those students who come through Rotary exchanges from other countries? Well, she was one of them. She just stayed. She loves her native Australia but couldn’t get Canada out of her system so, to her home country’s chagrin, is now one of us.
It was music that did it. She spread across Canada’s physical and musical geography at about the same rate. She was already a well-established folkie Down Under, starting on the stage at the age of six in opportunities provided by her troubadour family. But she rebelled from the simplistic folk-country environment she was brought up in, veering off into progressive rock and alternative rock likings.
Consequently she was not expecting the bolt of lightning that ran her through during that Rotary posting on the island of Grand Manan – New Brunswick’s own version of Cape Breton, situated in the wash of the Bay of Fundy.
She had always equated fiddle music to American confederate yokels. She has since learned that even the southern American redneck stuff has its appealing authenticity, but at the time, she was slapped agog by Acadian folk music. It smashed down a mental wall she didn’t even know she had. It puttied over the chip on her shoulder.
“When you hear fiddles played like that, right in the room with you, it just blows your mind open,” she said. “You don’t just hear it, you feel it going right through you, and it stays there after the sound fades. It’s primal. And I was hooked. Hard.”
The epiphany about Canadian music turned her compass. When the Rotary exchange came to an end, she moved to Moncton, where she drank in Canadian folk, alternative and rock music like an alcoholic locked in a liquor store.
When she moved again, this time to Saskatoon, her cravings got a new dose. The prairie music scene is significantly different from and equally astonishing as the Maritime sound. It was like a bell ringing for Round Two.
“I couldn’t believe how much music Canada had to offer,” she said. “Australia has a better music scene than a lot of people give it credit for, and we hear all the time about America. But Canada is just heaped with music, all different kinds. I realized I had to focus. No mediocrity. There was just too much high-quality stuff to get into. Life is too short for crap when there is such good stuff right there for the taking.”
Her boyfriend, a drummer, made it his mission to school her in the best of Canadian songwriting. They found a huge mutual appreciation for Neil Young, Leonard Cohen was an easy sell, Dall’Osto clicked with Buffe Sainte-Marie’s stuff (and has now met her on a couple of occasions), and deeper she drilled right down to the Fred Eaglesmith and Willie P. Bennett level.
All the while, she wasn’t just listening to records. She was learning to play this material. Dall’Osto never once waned in her own performing and songwriting. She was collaborating with people like Christien Belliveau, Erik Arsenault, Kacy & Clayton, Eliza Doyle, members of The Deep Dark Woods, and many more. Strong musicians tend to wander to the same campfires.
To give one indication of Dall’Osto’s true abilities, she was on stage last year at the Regina Folk Festival singing in between Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harris, and also doing a workshop with Pokey Lafarge.
That boyfriend became a husband, and together they became parents. He is an instrumentation technologist by trade and got a job offer in Prince George. As a family, they took the offer, and reset their mentality of yet another dose of regionally unique Canadian music.
One of the first things Dall’Osto did to get ready for the move was start Googling around for P.G. musicians she might like.
“It makes me laugh, but I remember feeling really nervous about meeting some of these players,” she said. “The first name that came up was Raghu Lokanathan, and he’s just so good. We have been in touch, but I still haven’t taken that step to approach him about doing some music together.”
That might have changed as of this past weekend. Dall’Osto attended the Caledonia Sings: The Raghu Lokanathan Songbook event at the Prince George Playhouse, an event steeped in local music quality.
And she does have some new guides through the P.G. music scene. After a year of baby steps – literally, she has been focused on her daughter’s first trip around the sun – she has been spending regular time with people like Sober Becky, Danny Bell and Jeremy Pahl, all of them excellent musical company to keep in these parts.
Dall’Osto also has that album that got a soft release but no formal launch party. She was so focused on her flesh and blood baby Magnolia that she didn’t make a fuss over the newborn CD. It has a gingham dress, black coffee, ’52 Mercury fin-tail kind of sway. It sounds like a close cousin to Lindi Ortega or Whitehorse, both of whom happen to be Canadian acts. This country must indeed be rubbing off on her.
“I don’t relate – and this is going to make my parents really sad – to the Australian music scene,” she said. “I became an adult in the Canadian environment, and I drank it all in during those really formative times in my life. I was so lucky to always be surrounded by these extraordinary musicians and very generous musicians. I think my CD came out really well and that’s entirely because of the good people playing on it. I have never considered myself a solo artist, even if it’s my name on the cover. I always feel I’m part of a collective. I am always looking to be a collaborator, tell stories with other people, everyone adding their parts.”
You can experience Dall’Osto perhaps for the first time tonight at The Oakroom, and keep your attention on the Coldsnap Music Festival as her name will be somewhere on that roster as well.