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“I am demented and all my friends
are scared of me,” Mo Kenney
sings on a beloved, unreleased
staple of her live shows. “I am
an alien waiting for my family.”
Connection—the rare times we
have and hold on to it tenuously,
the lack or loss of it, the search for
it, and even the creeping feeling
that it may be unattainable—is a
defining theme of the Dartmouth,
Nova Scotia, singer-songwriter’s
body of work. It’s no stretch to
imagine that it’s maybe the main
reason her fans are so passionately
drawn to her as an artist and
performer, either. There’s a
quixotic stubbornness in Kenney’s
songs, an insistence that forging a
bond is worth all the unavoidable
painandheartbreakandself-
destructionthatmightbewrought
fromit.
ThroughoutKenney’sown
roughride,fromtroubled
teenager-domandteaching
herselfElliottSmithsongsinher
small-townbedroomtobattling
withherdemonson2017’s
eclecticandbrashTheDetails,
musichasremainedconstant.
At17,shestunnedMaritime
rock’n’rolllegendJoelPlaskett
witha coupleofsongsrecorded
atherfriend’shighschool,which
eventuallyledtoa long-running
collaborativerelationship
betweenthetwo.In2012,Kenney
releasedherself-titleddebut,a
powerfulfirstimpressionthatMO KENNEY
Dartmouth, Nova ScotiaMATT WILLIAMS