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Léanie Kaleido is not your average girl. This pint-sized songstress hates buying shoes, for a start. Especially ones that make her look taller ("you never know when you might need to run really fast"). She cuts her own hair ("too many hairdresser let-downs"), tries not to bite her toenails (now I know Britney does it I need to stop"), she detests umbrellas ("just put a hat on"), and can get both her legs behind her head. She can sing 'One man went to mow' in Swahili. And she can do Greek dancing. But not very well. Oh yes, and she writes songs. Lots of songs. Daughter of Top Topham, himself an accomplished artist and The Yardbirds' original lead guitarist, and her mother Julia, also an artist, band manager and at one stage a cave-dweller in the Spanish mountains, LŽanie grew up listening to various styles of music including Blues, Joan Armatrading, The Beatles, The Stones, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Bread, Van Morrison.... yeah alright, and a bit of Abba and ELO. Later, and after a brief but mandatory spell of infatuation with Madonna, Human League and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, she managed to dodge the Wham phase, opting for The Smiths and U2 and then later, at Sussex University, found ultimate happiness with floppy-haired shoegazers Ride ("Mark Gardner was my first crush since, er, Holly Johnson and Human League's Phil Oakey, and let's face it, any crush after those two had to be an improvement") plus The Charlatans and Chapterhouse, along with a healthy dose of PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and the beautifully bonkers Cocteau Twins. Her own style is mellow and wistful but slightly warped; sometimes gentle, often dark songs, peppered with the odd tongue-in-cheek folky tune about breast implants, travelling witches with a penchant for murder, bath-related torment, or the shoe shopping gene that she so happily lacks. Her voice, once described as "audio-ganja", has an innocence that sometimes belies the naughty vibe of some of her lyrics. When asked to sum up her dŽbut album KaramŽlien, LŽanie simply calls it a "soothing mess". Léanie has used hypnotherapy and NLP techniques to overcome chronic stage fright, and although she much prefers being cooped up in the studio "building songs", she does venture out these days to "make an arse" of herself, playing tracks from KaramŽlien, which is available through DJC Records.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, Play.com and selected record stores. |
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