News

SOULFUL SINGER TO RELEASE HER “NEARLY LOST”  BLUE NOTE DEBUT SPILT MILK ON OCT. 20
9/30/2009

On October 20, Blue Note Records will release Spilt Milk, the stunning debut album from singer Kristina Train (click here to hear the album). After a run of opening dates with Chris Isaak last month, Kristina will be hitting the road again in the coming weeks opening for Keb’ Mo’ and Susan Tedeschi, giving audiences around the country an early chance to hear her perform the affecting songs from her debut in a live setting.

“In showbiz you need flashy costumes and talent,” said Isaak. “I have the flashy costumes, Kristina has the talent! She is really an amazing singer. I am a fan like everybody else who hears her voice… She is that good.”

With Spilt Milk, Kristina—who was born in New York City and raised in Savannah, Georgia—has made an urbane, soulful, and lush debut that showcases her stunning voice. As a vocalist, she alternates between gentle balladeering and powerful belting, her bluesy vibrato revealing the breadth and elegance of a young Dusty Springfield — a little bit London, a little bit Memphis.

Interestingly, Kristina’s story is in many ways the inverse of Springfield’s. In her case it’s the soulful Southern girl with the awe-inspiring voice that heads to London to find inspiration and record her debut statement. Spilt Milk was recorded with Jimmy Hogarth, the sought-after British producer whose recent credits include Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae, and James Blunt. Powerhouse songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger Eg White (a Grammy Awards Record of the Year nominee earlier this year for Adele’s “Chasing Pavements”) co-wrote most of the songs with Kristina, who delivers them so convincingly that the words could be pages torn from her diary.

A potentially devastating turn of events during the recording sessions revealed a great deal about the determination and patience with which Kristina has pursued her dream. After having recorded most of the album, a disastrous computer glitch resulted in the deletion of nearly all the music that had been completed. What might have been a crushing blow to a lesser individual, Kristina instead turned into inspiration, rallying her cohorts and re-cutting the vanished material with even more passion. The experience even provided her with an album title, because there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk.