Kristina Train — Spilt Milk (2009) |
Kristina Train — Spilt Milk
Born: January 17, 1982, New York City, USA
Origin: Savannah, Georgia, USA
Instruments: singing, violin, guitar
Album release: October 20, 2009
Record Label: Blue Note Records
Duration: 40:05
Tracks:
01. "Spilt Milk" (Kristina Train, Jimmy Hogarth, Francis "Eg" White) 3:39
02. "No Man's Land" (Beverley Knight, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:39
03. "Don't Remember" (F. White, David Arnold) 3:58
04. "Don't Beg For Love" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:03
05. "It's Over Now" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:17
06. "You're Still Going To Lose" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:14
07. "Moon Rivers and Such" (F. White, Bob Berts) 4:17
08. "I Can't But Help" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, Ed Harcourt) 4:40
09. "Call In The Maker" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:20
10. "Half Light" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, F. White) 3:33
11. "Far From The Country" (K. Train, J. Hogarth, E. Harcourt) 3:24
12. "Waltzing Back" – on extended version only
13. "If You Want Me" (Carolyn Franklin, Jimmy Radcliffe) – on extended version only
Credits:
• D. Arnold Composer
• Guy Barker Soloist, Trumpet
• Richard Bayliss Horn
• Felix Bloxsom Drums
• Shanieka D. Brooks Product Manager
• Martin Burgess Viola
• Sarah Button Viola
• Gillon Cameron Viola
• Paul Cassidy Viola
• Bryan Chambers Vocals (Background)
• Eugeny Chebyrin Horn
• Howard Cott Viola
• Cameron Craig Engineer
• Hannah Dawson Viola
• Sam Dixon Guitar (Bass)
• Alison Dodds Viola
• Richard Edgeler Assistant
• Richard Edwards Trombone, Trombone (Bass)
• Clarissa Faran Brass Arrangement, Brass Conductor
• Clare Finnimore Viola
• Sid Gauld Flugelhorn, Trumpet
• Nigel Gomm Trumpet
• Thomas Gould Viola
• Janice Graham Viola
• Timothy Grant Viola
• Vincent Greene Viola
• Ben Hancox Viola
• Ed Harcourt Loop, Piano, Vocals (Background)
• Michael Hausman Management
• Jimmy Hogarth Engineer, Guitar, Bass, Mix., Perc., Producer, Slide Guit., String Arr.
• Joel Hunter Viola
• Gordon H. Jee Creative Director
• Joe Kennedy, Jr. Celeste, Hammond B3, Piano
• John Kennedy Celeste, Organ (Hammond), Piano
• B. Knight Composer
• Matthew Knight Trombone
• Richard Koster Viola
• Oliver Kraus Cello, Conductor, String Arrangements, Viola
• Bob Ludwig Mastering
• Katherine Mayes Viola
• Clay Patrick McBride Photography
• Stephen Morris Viola
• Martin Owen Horn
• Mary Pearce Vocals (Background)
• Julian Peploe Art Direction, Design
• Helena Rathbone Cello
• Tom Rees-Roberts Trumpet
• Sam Dixon Guitar (Bass)
• Colin Sheen Trombone
• Julia Singleton Viola
• Sophie Sirota Contractor
• Hilary Skewes Contractor
• Martin Slattery Brass Arrangement, Brass Conductor, Piano
• Robert Spriggs Viola
• Kristina Train String Arrangements, Strings, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
• Jeremy Wheatley Mixing
• F. White Composer
• Patrick White Flugelhorn, Trumpet
• Sara Wilson Cello
• Eli Wolf A&R
• Andy Wood Trombone
• Wrecking Crew String Ensemble
¶ Her records label at the time, Blue Note Records, had initially been interested in pairing Train with Norah Jones producer Lee Alexander, but instead she went to London in 2007 and asked Jimmy Hogarth to produce the album. Train co-wrote eight songs on the album, collaborating with Hogarth, Eg White, and Ed Harcourt. Train also arranged and overdubbed strings on three tracks on Spilt Milk. The extended version of the release contains the Carolyn Franklin & Jimmy Radcliffe song "If You Want Me". In 2011, Kristina Train moved permanently to London and also left Blue Note Records for its Universal sister label Mercury Records (UK).
Editorial Reviews
¶ 2009 debut solo album from the singer/songwriter. Hearing Kristina Train for the first time is nothing less than a revelation: her sunny, easygoing demeanor and youthful good looks belie the heart-wrenching power of her voice. Train's Blue Note debut, Spilt Milk, is urbane and soulful, lush in its arrangements but intimate in its emotions, built on a foundation of classic and deeply felt Southern Soul.
Website: http://kristinatrain.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/kristinatrain#!
Review by Rovi
¶ Kristina Train was born in New York City but grew up singing in church choirs in Savannah, GA, home to many great soul and pop singers over the years. Train sang in soul bands while still a teenager and got a development deal with Blue Note when she was 19. Seven years later she went to London to cut Spilt Milk with producer and songwriter Jimmy Hogarth, and songwriter arranger Eg White. Train, Hogarth, and White wrote most of the tunes here, and they're all solid, with half of them sounding like potential anthems. The album opens with the title track, possibly the collection's strongest song and certainly the catchiest. The tune opens with a subtle piano figure and Train's whispered vocal, full of jazzy inflections, then the chorus kicks in with Train belting out the hook line with a soulful, tear-stained power. It's the kind of tune that will have you pushing the replay button over and over. "Don't Beg for Love" is another sizzler, a quiet tour de force with hints of Aretha and Dusty Springfield in the vocal, and that's not critical hyperbole. Train's restrained delivery is full of implied power as she tells a weak lover to get lost, while the backing singers drop some wailing, gospel-drenched melismas into the mix. The gospel singers return on "I Can't But Help," which celebrates life's darker moments with Train's vocal full of hope and jubilation despite the grim lyric. Train walks the fine line between aspiration and resignation with aplomb. ¶ "Call in the Maker" is another sharp bit of pop/soul while "Far from the Country" perfectly blends blues, pop, and Southern soul with Train's breezy vocal. The songwriting has plenty of knowing nods to the artists and songwriters of the late '60s and early '70s, but it's Train's voice that dominates the album. She has a dusky, soulful tone that can imbue even the simplest phrases with wrenching emotion. Spilt Milk -- the song and the album -- announces the birth of a remarkable new talent.
Kristina Train biography:
¶ “I always had a feeling that music wouldn’t just be in my life,” declares singer Kristina Train. “It would be my life.”
¶ Hearing Kristina Train for the first time is nothing less than a revelation: her sunny, easygoing demeanor and youthful good looks belie the heart-wrenching power of her voice. Train’s Blue Note debut, Spilt Milk, is urbane and soulful, lush in its arrangements but intimate in its emotions, built on a foundation of classic and deeply felt southern soul. The title track unfolds with an almost cinematic grandeur, its string-laden chorus swelling with widescreen melancholy. Balancing the sultry with the strong, Train excels on bittersweet breakup/makeup numbers like “Don’t Remember” and “It’s Over Now.” As the aphorism of the album title suggests, the album tells the story of an indomitable spirit. Train knows how, over the course of a song, to walk away from a relationship with tremendous style.
¶ Spilt Milk was recorded in London with Jimmy Hogarth, the sought-after British producer whose recent credits include Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt. Powerhouse songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and arranger Eg White – Grammy Awards Record of the Year nominee for Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” – co-wrote most of this material. Singer and pianist Ed Harcourt also co-wrote two, including the climactic “Far From the Country,” an especially poignant and personal conclusion to the disc, about the physical and emotional distances one must bridge to keep love alive
For inspiration, Train turns to Aretha Franklin – “There is not a song that Aretha has sung or will ever sing that doesn’t just melt me” – along with blues/R&B cult figures like former Stax star/Raelette Mable John and Bob Dylan-favorite Karen Dalton. Says Train, “I wanted my album to offer glimpses of my influences, not sound like my influences. Jimmy, Eg and I are of similar backgrounds, we appreciate the same music; we have similar tastes. The arrangements are just what we felt the songs needed, they give the songs flavor but don’t try to steal anybody else’s style. I hope the album is a nod to the music I love, while still being modern.”
¶ Music has been at the center of Train’s world since she was a toddler, when her mother encouraged her to play the violin. Train took to the instrument, but, more importantly, she also discovered an innate aptitude as a singer, with unerring pitch and a preternaturally mature delivery from a very young age. Says Train, “There’s depth to my voice and I think it comes from a lot of different places. But the way I sound today is the way I always sounded -- except in a tinier body.”
¶ As an artist, Train could never simply be described as a product of her times and that has allowed her, on Spilt Milk, to create music that can arguably be called timeless. ¶ Her mom, who raised Train alone, fashioned what some might view as a sheltered existence for the young Train, keeping her away from television and pop radio. But what she really did was provide a fertile laboratory for Train to freely grow as a young woman and a singer, apart from the vagaries of trends. Train took music and ballet lessons and listened to classical music and opera, along with jazz and blues. Her violin training definitely came in handy: Train has arranging credits on three of her tracks and overdubbed strings on two of them.
¶ Though born in New York City, Train was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and southern soul and gospel, which she sang in church and school choirs growing up, has had the most profound effect on her work. Almost as significant was the moment when, as a teenager, she unearthed her mom’s tucked-away stash of vinyl albums from the sixties and seventies: Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin. Say Train, ” I remember hearing Janis Joplin’s records and thinking, what is that all about? We lived in downtown Savannah, in a house kind of like a New York City brownstone. When we had thunderstorms I would go up to the roof and scream at the top of my lungs because I wanted to make my voice raspier. God only knows what that’s done to me!”
By the time Train was 19, she was already singing professionally, albeit locally. A producer based in the south who’d spotted Train arranged to bring her up to New York City to showcase for Blue Note. The label chiefs offered Train a development deal – but her mom had other ideas. She insisted her daughter go to college first. Many a confident and headstrong young artist would rebel and go it alone, accept the deal and take their chances. But Train – reluctantly, she now admits – listened to her mom. She agreed to attend college in Athens, Ga., keeping her hand in music by joining a band and spending far more time rehearsing and gigging than hitting the books. And when she was ready to return to her career full-time, Blue Note was still waiting.
¶ It was time well-spent, Train now realizes: “I know that at 19, I would not have made this record, which is the record I always wanted to make. This is the album that defines who I am. At 19, I don’t know what I would have put out. I believe everything happened for a reason. It took this amount of time for me to get here and to make this record. I always knew it would happen. “
¶ Train made several trips to London over the course of two years, to write with Hogarth and White, but the actual recording moved quickly. In fact, Train was such a natural that some of the vocal performances they chose came straight from the song demos they’d originally done. Right before they were about to embark on their final sessions, though, a disastrous computer glitch during file back-up resulted in the loss of much of what they’d already completed. As Train recalls, “It was the perfect electronic storm.” Undaunted, she and her cohorts went back in and re-cut the vanished material with even more passion and determination, the setback turning out to be far more inspiration than challenge. Looking back, Train says, “I don’t think anything was lost. I don’t think there was this one magic moment that we could never recapture. I love what it is today.” And the experience provided her with an album title. ¶ “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”
¶ Train’s confidence and faith in what she has created is part of what makes Spilt Milk so thrilling: “There’s just this magic thing that happens sometimes and you think, I want to sing this song for the rest of my life – I want to live in it, I want to bury myself in it, I want to wriggle around in it.. Every time I finished one, it was like, I can’t believe that, at this point in my life I finally have a song I would fight for, that I believe in 100% percent. And now I have all these songs together on an entire album that I feel this way about. For me, that’s my college degree.”
Kristina Train — Spilt Milk (2009) |