Strange Medicine

Over a series of increasingly impressive albums Kater has grown from a banjo-playing traditionalist into a thrillingly adventurous songwriter. Kater was born in Québec to a Canadian mother and a Caribbean father. Her last album, 2018’s Grenades, was raw and stripped back, but Strange Medicine is a far more cinematic record with strings, horns and synths layered over her rhythmic banjo playing. Many of the songs tackle the big issues – “colonialism, sexism, racism and misogyny” – but she transforms poison into medicine by celebrating the resilience of the human spirit in overcoming adversity. Songs such as ‘The Internet’ and ‘Floodlights’ are informed by her own lived experience but there are powerful historical narratives, too, such as ‘The Witch’, an ode to a woman persecuted in the Salem trials, and ‘Fédon (feat Taj Mahal)’ about the Grenadian folk hero Julien Fédon, who over 200 years ago led a rebellion against the island’s British colonial rulers. Guest vocalists Taj Mahal, Allison Russell and Aoife O’Donovan duet with Kater’s own wonderfully expressive voice on an album for the ages.