Singer, songwriter and composer, Kirsty Adams (24) is someone to keep a close eye on in the music scene entering 2020 as her experimentation with different genres brings something fresh to the industry. PHOTO: Supplied.
Somerset West-based singer, songwriter and composer, Kirsty Adams (24) feels most at home when her fingers are dancing over piano keys or clasped around a violin bow.
A Stellenbosch alumna, Adams has been training and playing music for over 17 years and obtained her Master’s in Music Composition in March this year.
Adams has just recently opened the metaphorical doors to her musical mastery, dropping her first compilation of songs in April this year in her EP album titled The Wings Beneath My Feathers.
A masterpiece of poetry and soul, the EP speaks to stages of heartbreak, unreciprocated love, and rising from the dark corners that coming with losing a long-time love.
Indicative of Adams’s unbridled spirit and quietly non-conforming nature, she feels that her music is difficult to define under a specific genre but tends to describe it as falling within the realm of experimental/alternative genre with elements of jazz, pop and classical, all threaded together with a contemporary streak.
Following the release of Adams’s EP in April this year, she produced a music video called “Fly Away”. Directed by Cape Town-based Casey Diepeveen, the video is an aesthetic dreamscape as Adams appears from a red cloud emitted from a smoke bomb, barefoot and in blood red material draped around her body which gives the viewer a sense of power and the feeling of a phoenix rising from the ashes.
A still from Adams’s first music video for her single, “Fly Away”. Bright colours, powerful shots and smoke bombs make for an atmospheric video. PHOTO: Supplied.
Diepeveen also directed Adams’s second music video for her single titled “Distraction” two months later in September. “Distraction” takes a 180 degree turn in complexity and colour where Adams has opted for a greyscale colour palette to invoke the feeling of a ‘flashback’ or a memory.
Cape Town-based fashion videographer, Paige Fiddes added to the team of female forces behind the creation of the video as she created a visual piece to suit the unreciprocated love story that Adams’s tells from behind a piano.
A still from Adams’s first music video for her single, “Fly Away”. Bright colours, powerful shots and smoke bombs make for an atmospheric video. PHOTO: Supplied.
Adams’s musical influences are British artist, Laura Mvula as Adams comments, “her approach to music is similar to my approach. She was also trained classically and writes poetically. And obviously her music videos are just art pieces. ‘Green Garden’, ‘She’ and Sing to the Moon are my favourites”.
Chance the Rapper’s quirky experimental theme that characterises his music is another influence of Adams.
Adams will listen to anything from Brit-pop rock band, Coldplay to American powerhouse, Lizzo as she says, “I love listening to Coldplay. It’s like you’re walking in a movie when you’re walking to Coldplay playing in your headphones and that is actually how I want everyone to feel about my music”.
Adams has performed at The Crypt, Alma Café, Twelve Apostles, Young Blood Gallery, Cavalli Wine Estate and at Nyorican Poets’ Café in New York City.
Next on the cards besides cooking more music, Adams says she would like to pursue a PhD in music around the topic of designing a South African popular music degree for South African universities since no South African university offers a degree in popular music, as she adds, “I hope one day to incorporate such a degree at universities. Otherwise, I will open my own school”.
Adams is currently in the process of recording the next part of her album so watch this space!
You can view the video for “Fly Away” here.
You can view the video for “Distraction” here.
MatieMedia sat down with Kirsten Adams who gave us a peek into her life as a musician. Sit back and give it a listen.
This article was written by Catherine Del Monte and Lucian van Wyk of the MatieMedia team.
*This article is an updated version of the original article.