Taking Her Time

Kristin Sweetland on high kicks and self portraits

She may not have known it at the time, but Kristin Sweetland picked the perfect title for her latest record. While the copyright date on the back of Own Sweet Time says 2007, the folk-rocker and fingerstyle-guitar diva is just now getting around to heavily touring the disc.

“The album’s called Own Sweet Time and it seriously took me my own sweet time to make it,” the bubbly Sweetland says. “It was one of those things that just felt like it was taking forever, in terms of getting the songs finished and getting the dates set up with the producer. I just had to let go and say, ‘Okay, it’s just going to take a while.’”

Featuring the producing talents of Ken Whiteley and Sweetland’s “maiden banjo voyage,” the album is definitely on the more folky/bluegrass end of the musical spectrum—a bit of a departure from 2002’s Root, Heart and Crown. Whiteley’s influence did have something to do with that, she says.

“He helps balance out my folkiness,” she says. “I’m inherently folky; I grew up with lots of folk music influences, but I don’t think what necessarily comes out of me is particularly folky. It’s more folk-rock—I call it smart, sexy folk-rock. But yes, Ken definitely helped add a little bit of bluegrass.”

Not that this means Sweetland will be fully immersing herself in twang—in fact, she has a rock band project in the works.

“I’m going through the process now of picking the band members for this mysterious new project that’s on the horizon. We don’t even have a name yet, but probably within the next year we’ll be in the studio,” she says, adding that former Ember Swift bassist Lyndell Montgomery will likely be on the roster. “I just secretly want to rock out. There’s high kicks and electric guitar solos in my future, there’s no getting around it, but for now I’m just folk-rockin’ it like a true folk hero.”

Sweetland’s psuedo-homecoming show—she used to live here in Mile Zero—will also be a bit of a multimedia presentation, as she’ll be showing some of her photography work as well.

“I started doing this self-portrait project for one of my photography projects while I was at UVic and I just never stopped doing it. Ten years later, I’ve collected an insane amount of these crazy, experimental, abstract, surprisingly fascinating self-portraits of me in strange places,” she says. “People have been bugging me to do something with my photos for a long time and I finally did and I’m forcing it upon my poor, unsuspecting audiences. It’s actually been the hit of my shows so far.”

Also adding to the atmosphere at Friday’s Solstice gig with Jeremy Walsh will be a “cabaret costume” theme.

“We’d like to encourage people to either dress up or dress costume or basically have fun with whatever they’re wearing,” she says. “They can wear ball gowns or bathing suits, just so long as they put a little creative thought into it.”

--------------
Kristin Sweetland
(with Jeremy Walsh and Friends)
8pm Friday, May 29
Solstice Cafe, 529 Pandora
Tickets $10 • 250-475-0477