Kytami

Kytami started taking violin lessons at 3 years of age. She went through an intense classical training at the Vancouver Academy of Music including orchestra, chamber groups, theory, private lessons, technique and master classes. At 17 years of age, feeling uninspired, she decided to break out. Falling in love with snowboarding and mountain biking, she put the violin aside to go live and exlplore the mountains around Whistler B.C. A few years later at the urging of some friends, she picked up the violin to start jamming with some local bands. She amplified her sound for the first time with a 40 dollar oyster pick-up, borrowed a Fender amp and became part of a band. Kytami was able to bring her skills and love for performing back to life when she earned a residency at the local Irish pub in Whistler. With her friend Leanne L'amour on guitar, and two new solid-body electric violins, the duo rocked crowds into drunken frenzies with fast fiddle music four to five nights a week. It was a pretty good life, riding powder during the day and playing to extremely receptive (drunk) audiences at night. However, Kytami had a yearning to record and produce music more in-line with her interests. She wanted to combine the sound of her violin with punk, reggae, hip hop, jungle and drum n bass. She wanted to change the context of which people expect to find violin music and players. So in the spring of 2002, Kytami came down from the moutains to the city of Vancouver and released her debut album, "Conflation". The album being a mish-mash of tracks recorded with different producers in different studios, the one cohesive element being Kytami's electric violin driven by electronic beats. In 2007 She released a second album, "Violinistextremist". Her live hip hop act "The Worst-Case Scenario" was co-founded by DJ The Phonograff and has been highly received by festival audiences from the westcoast all the way to the North West Territories. In addition, her side projects include of hip-hop/dancehall/drum n bass live act Third Eye Tribe, epic punk/metal/rock band Lownote, Punjabi/Celtic fusion dance group Delhi2Dublin as well as acoustic folk-punk band Blackie LeBlanc and the Kytami Revolution. Kytami has performed at events such as: Shindig (with Lownote-2007) BC Earthdance Northern California (TET-2007) CA Under The Volcano (2007) BC Folk on the Rocks (WCS-2007) NWT Music for the Mountain (WCS-2007) BC The Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival (D2D-2007) BC Canada Day on Parliament Hill (D2D-2007) ON Hip Hop Against War and Occupation (2006-2007) BC In the House Festival (2005-2007) BC Shambhala (TET-2004-2006) BC Scumbala (2006) BC The Komasket Festival (TET-2006) BC The New Forms Festival (TET-2006) BC The Vancouver Celtic Festival (2006) BC The Vancouver Folk Fest (2005-2006) BC The Commercial Drive Car-Free Festival (2005-2006) BC The Dragonboat Festival (D2D-2006) BC The Edge of the World Festival (TET-2005) The Seattle and Vancouver Hemp Fests (TET-2003) Slam City Jam (TET-2003)BC