About Kristin’s music
Kristin Gordon: Still Waters Run Deep by Beth Lorio
Listening to Kristin’s music is a lot like hanging out with her. There’s an immediate sense of ease - her singing voice is gorgeous, her melodies are accessible and engaging. Her wit and warmth are what impress you first. It’s like being genuinely smiled at and genuinely smiling back. And, as you listen to her love songs, ballads, instrumental compositions, anthems and humorous ditties, it dawns on you that the directness of her style holds a space for some extremely deep thinking. She’s smiling at you, and she’s looking into your soul while she’s doing it.
The thread running through all of her work is an earthy rumination on all the big questions: Who Am I? Who Are You? What Are We Doing Here? Can We Ever Know? And if not, what the hell do we do about that? Luckily, just as Kristin herself is the opposite of the stereotypical “deep thinker” - humorless, deep voice of the know-it-all- so her music introduces existential questions via observations of daily life, where the three dimensional realities (living room furniture, washing the dishes) speak a language of deep meaning. Her introduction to an instrumental piece from 2018 notes that is is a “tribute to the small things in boxes that live under our beds.” While the literal small thing in this tune is a wind up doll, in Kristin’s musical world she is compelled to take boxes out of their hidden places and open them up for our inspection - hidden, disowned parts of ourselves? Secret’s we’ve forgotten we keep? Old pains we can’t stand to feel? Voices of the voiceless?
A large part of what makes Kristin a trustworthy guide on these forays into the depths is that she first and foremost turns her unflinching eye on her own vulnerabilities, limitations and possibilities. This honesty coupled with her grasp of the constant absurdities of daily living allow her to point the way for the rest of us. Its all a part of the weird game of existence. No matter how deep the dive, how impossible the questions, Kristin’s ultimate gift is that of affirmation - the beauty of being alive is reason enough to live.
Contact Kristin
Kristin:
Kristin Gordon is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist living in Portland, OR. She loves coffee, singing in harmony, laughing, and looking for meaning in everyday things. When she’s not writing words & melodies, she’s often directing choirs or teaching young fingers to play the piano.
In October 2017, Kristin originated Shitty Song Tuesday. Every Tuesday, she woke up, wrote and recorded a song before teaching music lessons in the late afternoon. After two years she has over 80 fledgling little experiments, she’s learned a lot about sound engineering and is still creating every Tuesday. Her new album, “Tuesday” is a deeper dive into some of her earliest songs from the project.
