www.myspace.com/kayleecolemusic
PRESS
Three Imaginary Girls - 07/08
Seattle Sound Magazine - 07/08
Seattle Times - 06/08
Three Imaginary Girls - 06/08
Seattle Sound Magazine - 06/08
The Inlander - 05/08
Coeur d'Alene Press - 05/08
Three Imaginary Girls - 04/08
Seattlest - 04/08
Spokane 7 - 02/08
Spokane 7 - 02/08
Inlander - 08/07
Spokane 7 - 07/07
At a little after 11 pm last Friday, Empyrean erupted with applause. Though the front room couldn't have held more than 30 people, wedged haphazardly into the spaces between tables, the audience clamor over Kaylee Cole's performance felt like the work of 60.
She had just finished singing "Ghost Song." Less haunting than rich with the imagery of loss, the song was made a bit ethereal by the vocal reverb left on the mixer after Josh Hedlund's set. Cole's voice — a warbly, lispy, coy, affected thing, with considerable dexterity and surprising range — toyed with her lyrics, drawing out words for emphasis, omitting syllables to play with expectation. "I've got to leave you tonight / I've got to leave you tonight / but if I leave you / when I leave you / I won't leave you / 'cause, I'll stay along ..." The piano part was simple and twinkling under a mournful viola played by a girl named Kim. It wasn't Cole's most complex or successful work of the evening, but it was the final swell that caused the wave to break, sending people into a reverie. People hooted and cheered. A few began chanting her name. They demanded something Spokane audiences seldom ask of their local acts: an encore.
These were not Cole's friends cheering, nor the hyper-supportive coterie of singer-songwriters that usually hangs out at Empyrean (they all had shows elsewhere). The clamor was primarily the work of complete strangers drunk on the ecstasy of new musical infatuation. Kaylee Cole — pianist of eight months, songwriter of perhaps six — had taken an unfamiliar room and turned it.
It's a rare and strange thing for a performer to captivate a crowd so fully as Cole did. Usually it happens on the heels of intense nostalgia or expensive pyrotechnics or both. Impressive, then, for her to manage it with just that gravelly, sexy, sad voice; a worn coffee shop upright; and a little accidental reverb. Whatever sparks she gave off were cast with voice, character, imagery and those crooked, preternatural fingers twinkling across that battered piano. Whatever sense of community existed was born of her intense, showy displays of humanity.
From Seattle Sound, January 2007:
"Braving the Cascades in winter is a bitter, often treacherous trek, but for singer/songwriter/Spokanite Kaylee Cole, the chance to play her first ever show in Seattle is worth the trouble. A staple of the Spokane scene, the young songstress' sullen, bluesy piano ballads--fractured lullabies complemented by warm, Regina-Spektor-meets-Sierra-Casady vocals--have been heralded around town, leading to opening spots for touring musicians like Johanna Kunin and others. Cole plays an afternoon show at this West Seattle coffeehouse, then jets to the Cha Cha for a late-night performance."
