…”Lily Kiara doesn’t choose the common path, which makes this album wonderful to listen to. A record that reminds of the early works of Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega.”… www.MusicFrom.NL (On This Ground, 2008)

Intimate acoustic folk/pop, songs with fierce outlets and staccato guitar playing or melancholic tunes. Leaves you want to take a walk in the wind, or write a poem. Has been compared to the likes of Jonatha Brooke, Rickie Lee Jones, Suzanne Vega, Ani DiFranco.
A poetic singer/songwriter based in Amsterdam. A sensory poet with a vocal quality of vulnerability and power rolled up into one.

For band and clips 2010!! see below or click here for text: Songs & Poems

'Cradle Me' Lily Kiara Band, Amsterdam from Julyen Hamilton on Vimeo (more clips on this site!)

Visit Sibyl Sings for news about the label... live videos on MySpace see also MusicFrom.nl and YouTube: lilykiaramusic, to cds for album info and mp3s. Several articles at the site of 3voor12 (in Dutch)

The latest solo album, On this Ground, released on 18 January 2008 on new label Sibyl Sings. Photo impression cd release

Click to see a video made by Julyen Hamilton with This Way, song of the album On This Ground

Click for an interview with 3VOOR12/Amsterdam 2008, about New York, Sibyl Sings and On This Ground (in Dutch).

Besides soloconcerts and gigs with Felicity Provan, Lily initiated concerts with songs, poetry and music: Songs & Poems. A surprising coming together of acoustic folk/pop, poetry and improvised music. It started in 2006 as a quartet and now in 2009 has grown into a sextet, together with Julyen Hamilton (poetry), Michael Moore (clarinet, saxophone), Felicity Provan (cornet and vocals), Michael Vatcher (drums) and Joost Buis (lap steel guitar and trombone). They performed at KHL Koffiehuis, OT30, Zaal 100 and at Amsterdam Literary Festival.

On January 18th 2008 the new full solo album of Lily Kiara, On This Ground, released. Guests on the album are Felicity Provan (cornet) and Andy Moor (electric guitar). Reviews are speaking of …‘The poetic intermezzos bring to the album extra tension which lifts it beyond usual singer-songwriter music’… and, …’Lily Kiara does not choose for the known path which makes this record wonderful to listen to. An album that reminds of early work of Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega.’… Previous albums are No Alibi (2001) and a cd with five songs and poems, SOUTH, produced with her solo performance Moving South (2006).

In 2007 she started the independent label Sibyl Sings, which produces music and poetry. On This Ground is the first album on Sibyl Sings. The next album is a double cd with poems and music by the English poet Julyen Hamilton. Sibyl Sings.

Lily played in many venues in and around Amsterdam since the release of On This Ground. In April 2008 she presented the album in New York City at The Bowery Poetry Club. In November 2008 she played around Adelaide and had a few live radio shows there. See www.youtube.com/lilykiaramusic for some videos of a live concert. and clips with Michael Moore and Michael Vatcher at MySpace.

In 2003, she made it to the finale of Mooie Noten in The Vondelpark. She performed her solo performance Moving South, in which poetry, songs and dance live together, at Festival Motel Mozaique in Rotterdam in 2006.

Internationally she played mostly in Seattle, USA (between 1997 and 2001). She also played in the north of Sweden, in London, New York and San Francisco, Basel, Switzerland, and Brussels, both in shared gigs with other musicians and also at open mics to try out new songs , meet local musicians and keep playing.

No Alibi has radioplay at radio stations in Berlin, Hamburg, Spain, Slovenia and Serbia/ Montenegro. In 2004, a cd of Palincxk singer Han Buhrs came out, Spam, Scores and Encores, featuring Lily in a few songs. In 2006 her song Swing Set was used in a dance performance that Julyen Hamilton made for dancer Francoise Leick, and which premiered in Paris.

Lily has many years of performing experience, both in The Netherlands and internationally, as a dance artist, since1989. In the past few years she has been making dance pieces in which she also uses her own texts and songs. It has always been natural to use dance, music and writing to create work. For long they were made somehow separate from each other. Since 2004 they sometimes live together on stage.

(c) photos by patrick beelaert, concert Brussels, 2009

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