Pouncing on the New Year

I am writing this from the future. It is already a new year for me, a shiny, brand new year. I have made sure it is not poisonous, it is safe for you to take a bite out of 2011.

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Isn't it strange that numbers are so important to us? The New Year rolls around and we feel a sense of defeat or triumph. We curse the old year and we reach for the promise of renewal that tomorrow offers.

Tomorrow is a new day, a new year. It is important. It will be epic. This will be THE YEAR. We turn our faces into the bright, shining hope that the numbers on the calendar are a spell that can evoke and bring forth a new life - maybe a little like the life we already have only shinier, happier, thinner, less smokey, more creative...

This year, I will be a better me. This year...

It's silly, I tell myself. But I feel it. Feel the depression of the autumn sloughing off me, the dried snakeskin of last year is ready to fall away. I crouch, tensing muscles in anticipation, flicking a long tail of excitement as I wait for the clock to tell me it is time to pounce!

This year. This year I will be more. A bigger, brighter, incan-fucking-descent, unstoppable, irrepressible, undeniable force.


Just like last year.

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I love New Year's Eve. It doesn't even matter what I do. I can be out at a party, I can be home alone. New Year's, for me, is a wrapping up time. I lived last year. I did things. I feel a sense of accomplishment. And I am ready for the next year.

2010 was amazing for me, it brought me so many things, life altering, universe bending things. I worked really hard and got a lot done, met some of the best people of my life, and learned how to be happy.

Here's a very short tour of "Fantastically Wonderous Things Kim did in 2010."

Finished my very first solo album which was fully funded by YOU. Thank you!!!! It is so good. Produced by Sean Slade (Radiohead, Dresden Dolls,) engineered by Benny Grotto (Boston's Producer of the Year,) made musically delicious by a small selection of wonderful musicians. I worked with a dream team, and we made a really dreamy album

Got amazing artists involved in the album project. Each song has an illustration by a different artist. And the cover of my album was done by the amazing, Travis Louie:

Met and fell in friend love/deep collaboration frenzy with Molly Crabapple:



Made art for a sculpture show:

Moved to New York City:

Modeled:

Played in Australia, Canada, Germany, and back and forth across the US several times.

Here's a live video of an intimate show at Cindy Wonderful's FAB LAB in Berlin:

Got drunk in New Orleans (also played 6 shows, shot an upcoming music video, and registered to clean pelicans:)

Made amazing videos with BriAnna Olson:








Made amazing music videos with Jim Batt (more to come!) :








Met Peaches at one of my shows in Berlin. She said I was intense. Best compliment ever.


Got an assistant!!! Shannon, you make my life better.


Hugged a trumpet player:

Launched a make up line with Sweet Libertine!

And last, but certainly not least: I fell in love. The best ever love. With the best ever person. Ever. And we love you, too.

The Impossible Girl - FULL ALBUM LAUNCH!

Yes!!!!!!! YESYESYES!!!

I have an album. It is launched. It is up and ready and out and you can get it!!! 


If you pre-ordered my album your package is on it's way - check your email for your download code and more information. 

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Because you are lovely I am offering this discount code of 35% off the CD, which means the CD is only $10 through Dec. 18th (full price is $15)
You are free to use this code yourself or share it with whomever you like.

35% off CD Discount Code: impossible

Check out the things here:  Kim's Store

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I've been working on this for so long that I forgot to be excited about it. Until I got my CDs in the mail and then all my excitement was renewed. Digital releases be damned! As long as we have physical bodies we will be interested in, and excited by, the physical world. Even if the CD is just a medium that holds the digital information, it is still a real object. It has texture and weight. Light reflects off its surfaces. The brain is stimulated by the body, and the body loves to have and hold, to see and smell, and feel. And there is a lot of feeling wrapped up in these little CDs. A lot.

Speaking of digital releases - the album is a free download today - December 15th - until midnight! And I was being a bit dramatic about damning the digital releases, because actually there is a lot of neat stuff in the digital release - like art for each track - that the physical product does not provide. Anyway - we live in a world where we get both!


Now go, little Impossible ones, and tell the world: on facebook, twitter, blogs, myspace, anything. Link to my music on bandcamp, link to my fancy videos, spread the music so it can grow and I can keep making music for you.

I have a bunch of new merch too!

New posters. (Two designs that combine into one! )

                         

Fancy, glittery Impossible Girl make-up by Sweet Libertine.

Two eyeshadows and one glitter.

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A note on the chapter releases and the downloads:

All of the songs from the chapters are also included in the full album, PLUS six more songs. So you can delete the chapters if you like. Don't worry about losing any songs - you will have them all and more.

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And have you seen this amazingly creepy new music video of mine?

Directed by Jim Batt

'Stalker' music video by Jim Batt

Please leave comments on the youtube page and share everywhere you can think of: facebook, twitter, blogs...

Directed by the incredibly talented (and imminently patient) Jim Batt.
This video was shot in one day in the middle of winter in Melbourne, Australia. The spunk (that's Australian for total babe) I'm stalking is Mojo Juju, an amazing musician and performer here in the land down under.

The house belongs to Frankie Valentine, Mojo's partner.

My dress was found at a vintage shop and the rest of the costume was provided by Rose Chong Costumes in Melbourne.

That little nightgown was FREEZING cold. I also had no idea how see through it was until I saw the footage.

Big thanks to: Mojo Juju, Frankie Valentine, Jim Batt, Anthony Cleave, Rose Chong's, Tim Tam's, Murray Lorden, and whiskey.

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And one other thing: MY ALBUM COMES OUT DECEMBER 15TH!!!!!!!!!!

Hearing My Song on the Radio

Today I tuned in to BBC6 Music online to listen while a fan in Florida got to call in and request any song he wanted. What he requested was my song, "Rainbows and Unicorns," and what happened inside me was amazing.

I listened to several songs before mine came on, radio friendly songs by famous artists, wondering how my song would sound next to these slick productions.

The show's host, Chris Hawkins, announced that they would be talking to listeners all around the world to get special Christmas requests. Chris said that one of these calls would be to Tampa, Florida - this is where Kyle, the young man requesting my song, lives. Seems the call to him was eagerly anticipated. They liked especially when Kyle said, "Awesome." And Kyle was Awesome. He was casually articulate and interesting. And he had chosen my song as his gift to BBC6 Music.

And then Rainbows and Unicorns started, and held it's own next to all those famous songs. There was my little song, not so little anymore, out in the world, all on it's own, doing it's thing, and being rather lovely.



I was anxious and proud and honored and shy and amazed and happy most of all.

Thank you, Kyle!

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And then I watched the final edit of my music video by Jim Batt. "Stalker" video launches tomorrow: Monday, December 13th. Watch out world, this video is really wonderful!

In Between Everything

Here I am in the midst of a performance reverie. Peaches was at this show in Berlin, she said I was intense. Intense is exactly what I want to be - along with everything else.

Here is something I've been thinking about:

Art happens in the space in between the viewer and the piece. The listener hears the space between the notes. The reader lives between the words. There is an undefinable, intangible, amazingly profound thing that happens. And we cannot see it, hear, touch it, taste it, or smell it. It happens beyond the senses, or maybe between them.

We work so hard to create these amazing works of art, symphonies and cathedrals and giant paintings, great novels, we work our whole lives to express something, to create something, that can only happen in the space in between. The artwork is not the art. Art is the incredibly personal relationship that cannot be expressed or defined.

We have art teachers, art critics, art industries. We can say a painting, a song, a book is technically good or bad; we can have subjective opinions, we can say, "Awesome!" or "Suck!" ; we can point at the thing and say yes, or no, but we cannot ever point at the art. Because art is the gap.

So why? Why bother? Why work so hard, use so many words, so much paint, learn how to play barre chords, when it isn't the art that is the art?

Because what we make provides a structure, and structure defines space, and in the space the art happens. In a properly defined space, art can be perceived, however ephemerally, however fleeting, or intangible, or rarely. We build a a beautiful thing and the art comes to it.

We try to capture art, but it cannot be captured. If the thing that lives in the gap is not allowed to move freely it will wither and die very quickly. You see it all the time, an artist has some form of success, and repeats this over and over again, thinking to capture the inexplicable thing that happened the first time, only to find that the repetition has driven the art out of the thing completely.

This isn't to say that repetition is always bad. Sometimes it is repetition that leads to the most amazing of artistic experiences. Repetition can be a form of discipline which can lead to a magnificent structure. What is bad is the stagnation and denial of movement. Trying to stay still in the moment that is already gone.

The experience of art, music, literature, is so fulfilling that we don't want to be without it ever. Moments of pure feeling, that don't necessarily have an emotion attached but can be any and all at once. It is a feeling of true understanding and belonging. What you understand or belong to cannot be explained. Open your mouth to say why and what you think/feel/know and the art, the gap, the bright, living thing in between everything, slips away.

And then we are empty. And we try to fill the space with something that resembles the thing that once filled that space. We try our own repetition. Like addicts we will do anything to fill the hole that art left.

But just as art is the gap, art is also the void. I am learning to live with the emptiness, not to give in to it, not to submit to a depression or a fear. And when I can be empty, without trying to stuff myself full of anything and everything, that is when my best work begins.


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More photos from the Berlin show. (Photos by Jim Batt.)

And by the way, Peaches is intense.