Imagine a flash of Janis Joplin in Haight-Ashbury, mixed with a modern goth living in the Belle Époque who stands at the steps of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi conjuring oracles. Dividing her time between the UK and Paris, Florida-raised Kim Logan is something of an anachronism and resides in this suspended place and time just as much now as she did back in her youth.
Learning to read and sing from an early age, Logan was 7 years old in the 5th grade, and just 8 years old when she was kicked out of her private catholic school for writing a paper on abortion rights. The word prodigy comes to mind. But it was the big voices of her childhood like Shaina Twain, Steven Tyler, Led Zeppelin, and her time as a contracted soprano opera singer—a job she’s held since childhood—that has driven her sound and belief in her own unique voice.
After leaving Berklee College of Music at 17, Logan headed to Nashville to cut her teeth on the city’s legendary rock and blues circuit. While maintaining a position with the Nashville Opera, Logan turned down a lucrative and constrictive development deal and started her own musical imprint, Swamp Thing Records.
By releasing her music on her own label she’s been able to control her aesthetic and sound, but not without the help of vital mentors. There’s Grammy-winning producer/ engineer/ mixer Vance Powell who has worked with Chris Stapleton, The White Stripes whom she credits with shaping her artistry, and producer/ FOH engineer Brett Orrison (The Black Angels/ Jack White) who produced Shadow Work’s “Better Way.”
As a part of Europe’s Americana boom, Logan’s permanent move across the pond and partnering with her Parisian band, The Silhouettes, has shifted the roots sound of her early music to a dark and heavier era. “Ghost,” “Oedipus Wrecks,” and “Western Medication” are Shadow Work’s tracks where this transition is heard the most. Her deep and sensual voice carries the weight of several opera singers in one, and is best heard live to capture its octave range.
Where will Kim Logan’s spirit move next? Montmartre, Paris’ fringe arrondissement, once filled with anarchists, bohemians, sex workers, painters, vaudeville performers, and pre-jazz music, has become her current lodestar. Delving into the occult and the world of dreams as a spiritual practice over the years, Logan found herself influenced by the city’s contentious legacy while writing new music there. Catch her and the Silhouettes in Paris at the end of month.
