Biography
To say that Kristin Sweetland is a musician, singer, songwriter, and photographer would be to sell her unique artistry short. She is an artist, and a nomadic one at that — having lived all across North America for many years in her van, the road her home. And the fact that she refers to her incessant touring as “les aventures” provides just a hint of her uniqueness and quirkiness.
Now Toronto-based, Sweetland has released multiple CDs and EPs; internationally toured her particular brand of smart, sexy folk-rock more times than she can recall; won two awards from Folk Music Ontario’s “Songs from the Heart” contest; and worked with such acclaimed producers as Ken Whiteley, David Travers-Smith and Chris Stringer.
Kristin Sweetland grew up in London, Ontario. A memory from her childhood evokes imagery of perhaps a century ago: “My dad would stay up at night playing Carter Family tunes on his guitar and my grandpa would get up at sunrise to play banjo out on the back stoop.”
The pivotal catalyst for Sweetland’s musical career was seeing the 1988 movie Satisfaction starring Justine Bateman and Julia Roberts. After first ripping holes in all of her jeans, she told her dad she wanted to play guitar, and the next day they bought a cherry red Peavey Stratocaster. A few years later she also picked up the acoustic, and in these formative years Sweetland decided that there was nothing she couldn’t learn to play if she put the time into it. And she did.
Sweetland’s music became more of a profession than a hobby when she took courses and workshops at University of Victoria in British Columbia, where she learned the intricacies of songwriting and form. She was accepted to the BC Festival of the Arts, which was her first time performing her own work for a live audience.
After graduating, Sweetland stayed in Victoria playing gigs, working on another degree, taking various film and fine arts courses, and cultivating her love of photography. Her first photography assignment was self-portraiture, which she uses to express herself to this day. “Through all of my adventures, I’ve been doing a self-portrait series,” she explains. “More than my words, the pictures tell the stories of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.”
Her gorgeous photos demonstrate a depth of emotion, keen eye for composition, and talent for storytelling. Sweetland doesn’t see the woman in the photographs as herself but a character, often referring to her as “she.”
After moving back to Ontario, Sweetland released the 2002 Ken Whiteley-produced album Root, Heart & Crown, which was lauded for its intelligence, quality, poetry, power, and range, and Sweetland for being a gifted lyricist and composer, outstanding guitar player, and mature singer.
Sweetland took the show on the road, booking as many shows as she could, with showcases and conferences along the way. Four years of touring later she made her second CD, Own Sweet Time, which she spent approximately a year and a half on. “I think there’s something about your sophomore project that makes you go a little crazy,” she says, admitting that she can go “deliciously and adorably artistically insane—in a totally nice-to-be-around kind of way!”
Released at the end of 2007, Own Sweet Time was also critically acclaimed as intelligent and enchanting, and Sweetland’s guitar work as incredible, supple, and amazingly diverse.
For her next project, Sweetland decided to focus on her instrumental composition skills, and formed a duo with bassist-violinist Lyndell Montgomery which they called “Captain Dirt & The Skirt.” Their 2013 album The Adventures of Captain Dirt & The Skirt takes listeners on a multi-instrumental journey, proving that you don’t need words to tell great stories. The songs draw from traditional folk music, bluegrass, hymnal, classical, and pop with the undeniable grit of rock layered throughout. Hailed as “beautiful from top to bottom,” the album took home a 2014 Folk Music Ontario “Songs from the Heart” award for the song “Hello Sailor.”
In keeping with her “adventures” theme, Sweetland published her first book of photography in 2015 entitled Adventures in Sweetland. The photographs are selections from the same self-portrait series she began long ago as a student at the University of Victoria. More than a decade later, the project has followed her through endless adventures across mysterious landscapes in a sweet land that seems to be all her own. In this series, Sweetland has transformed North American landscapes into photographic fairytales, inviting viewers to travel into her imaginative world.
After the book’s publication, she exhibited her images in numerous gallery shows, including her book launch solo exhibition at the Fleishman Gallery in Toronto and her “Sweetland, Canada” show at the 2017 Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival.
Sweetland’s newest musical project Trilogies is currently in production and will be coming into the world a little differently this time. The album will be released in stages, or “trilogies”of three songs each (on four separate EP’s.) The tracks on each EP are connected musically and thematically, standing on their own as a “set.” However, all sets will eventually come together as a whole in compilation-form, available for download and on vinyl when the project is complete.
Following up on the success of The Adventures of Captain Dirt & The Skirt, Sweetland has once again elected to focus on instrumental arrangements, using her voice only as instrument. She performs on a multitude of guitars (acoustic, electric, Hammertone 12-string) as well as castanets, drums, bass, button accordion, and a soprano recorder she found in her parents’ basement from childhood. In fact, this recorder served as a great inspiration for the new collection of songs as she used it to compose the melodies first —often while sitting out in nature somewhere— later creating the guitar parts to match.
The first instalment of the album, Trilogies, Part 1, was released in November 2018. Thematically, it focuses on the power of the natural world, the forces of climate change, and the simple beauty of the ever-changing landscape. The album was recorded at Union Sound Company in Toronto with acclaimed producer/engineer Chris Stringer and also features the beautiful sounds of multi-instrumentalist Sahra Featherstone. Trilogies, Part 2 is scheduled for release in early spring 2020.
“Really, I just wanted to make an album I would enjoy listening to on my own,” she says. “I’m doing it for the pure fun of it.”
Sweetland will be happy as long as she’s playing music, touring, and taking photos, but some goals include expanding her live show to incorporate choreography and more visual aspects. Whatever Kristin Sweetland chooses to do, the result will inevitably be “Sweetlandish”—her personality and artistic vision are too irrepressible and will always shine.
“A tsunami of tenderness”
– Paris on the Move
“One of the country’s finest guitarists.”
– Roots Music Canada
