Kristina Train: Spilt Milk

Spilt Milk
List Price: $9.98
Audio CD

Product Description from Amazon.com: 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.

From the producer: Blue Note Records presents soulful newcomer Kristina Train’s debut album, Spilt Milk, available October 20th 2009. Spilt Milk was produced by Jimmy Hogarth, whose recent credits include Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt.

“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.

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. 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’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.”

More information:

• “Spilt Milk” MP3 download: http://www.kristinatrain.com/
• “Spilt Milk” full album stream: http://links.emi.com/4×06w9of3
• Kristina Train’s official site: http://www.kristinatrain.com/
• MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/kristinatrain
• Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/kristinatrainmusic

My take: My taste in music can best be described as eclectic. I own hundreds of CDs from Country music (Brooks and Dunn, Reba, Garth Brooks) to Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban to Keb Mo’ and Meatloaf. So I’m open to most any style (except for violent lyrics) and was eager to hear this new artist, Kristina Train. Her debut CD, Spilt Milk, does not disappoint. It’s tough for me to categorize her music – is it pop? blues? soul? jazz? A bit of all of the above. One thing I do know, the entire CD is beautiful music produced by a very talented young woman. I’m reminded of the dulcet tones of Diana Krall and Norah Jones when I listened to the tracks but really, Kristina has a style all her own, one I’m sure will lead her straight to the top. And not only does she have an amazing voice, she writes, plays the violin, and was instrumental in the arrangement and production of her debut album. Bravo Ms. Train on a job well done. I can’t wait to hear more from you as your career progresses!

This post was written for Blue Note Records who provided the CD for review. I was not compensated in any way except for the complimentary CD.