Kristy Gallacher – SPINNING PLATES
Singer-songwriter Kristy Gallacher’s second album falls very much into the burgeoning new folk style with mainly acoustic accompaniment utilised to enhance her well-crafted bittersweet songs of relationship issues. Though still in her early 20s, Kristy has been controlling her own music career for several years by running her own record label and self-producing and releasing her recordings. Too many female singer-songwriters sit there strumming a guitar and baring their soul with vacuous lyrics. Not this young lady! She’s a skilled guitarist and her lyrics are well-thought out, cleverly constructed, sometimes with a tinge of humour, other times with a touch of pathos and even heartbreaking fragility. She clothes them in memorable melodies and then brings together a bunch of great musicians to create inventive musical arrangements. I particularly like the use of Lisa Nowak’s fiddle to highlight the sad, story of “Beautiful Bouquet.” The title song has an insistent funky arrangement bubbling away beneath Kristy’s clearly-defined vocals. Though there’s a feel of hopelessness to “Bad Luck,” it’s tempered a little by an optimistic air. These are songs of maturity and intelligence from a young lady with much older shoulders to handle everything that life has to throw at her.
