Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Amythyst Kiah, Rounder Records 2021.
Amythyst Kiah is a black female singer/songwriter from Tennessee USA and Wary & Strange is the first album that I’ve heard from her, and I love it.
Her instrument of choice is guitar, at which she is particularly versatile playing in a variety of styles, including fingerpicking.
Her music is an amalgam of folk, blues, tinges of country, soul, roots and a dollop R&B.
Amythyst’s excellent playing really shines on Wild Turkey, the third track on the album, which is mostly finger-picked nylon strung acoustic guitar and her wonderful voice.
The eleven tracks on the disc traverse a variety of genres and styles from the folk of Wild Turkey to the R&B of Hungover Blues to the roots blues of Fancy Drones.
There’s power and grit in her arrangements and vocal delivery but there’s also oodles of soul.
An undercurrent of darkness pervades the album coming from the shared experience of growing up black in America.
Amythyst has a strong voice and a lot to say.
It all comes out in the second cut on the album, Black Myself, a fantastic blues track that chronicles the daily travails of being black in a white dominated society.
Amythyst is defiant and unapologetic about her colour, she’s proud of herself and her heritage.
The song earned her a Grammy nomination in 2020 for Best American Roots Song.
Wary & Strange had a long gestation period.
She started writing the album in 2018 and recorded it three times with different producers before she was happy with it.
On its release in 2021, Glide magazine stated: “This album will be a centrepiece of conversation, not just this year, but in the years to come too.”
Rolling Stone included it in their list of the 25 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2021, and the song Wild Turkey was named by Variety as one of the Best 50 Songs of 2021.
I am in agreement with the critics – this album is memorable.
