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Kaia Kater: Strange Medicine review – Canadian banjo virtuoso packs a powerful punch

The Canadian-Grenadian singer-songwriter’s phenomenal playing underscores strongly personal and political themes on her superb fourth album

Born in Montreal to a Canadian mother and a Grenadian father, Kaia Kater made her name as a banjo revivalist, much celebrated in folk circles as a teenager, though from the outset her backwoods picking came alongside songs with contemporary themes. Now 30, Kater brings her talents into full bloom on this fourth album, which marries dazzling banjo playing with percussion, strings, brass and more – a subtle kaleidoscope of sound over which her voice floats melodically but often accusingly. Fédon celebrates the leader of the 1795 uprising against British rule in Grenada, but there is room, too, for protests against the internet and, on Maker Taker, a parasitic music business.

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