Important!!! If you would like to send a message to Katharine Whalen, please go to katharinewhalen.com.
Hi and Happy holidays!
This Season Please buy a copy or two of "Dirty little secret" . We're having a big sale at cd baby It's also available many other places so check it out and I hope you enjoy.
Hope you enjoy and again all the best!
..dazzling and seductive
David Dye NPR
World Cafe Show with David Dye big success - press here to hear podcast
Dirty Little Secret is a delightful change-up.
By Stuart Munro Harp magazine
First printed in Jul/Aug 2006
On this haunting, moving solo album from Raleigh, NC singer Katharine (and former member of Squirrel Nut Zippers) laces the songs with a sultry, strong honesty. With lurid, evocative arrangements and varied sounds that combine with vocals ranging from guttural to ethereal to yearning, Dirty Little Secretis a superb album.
Amy seele - INMAG
The power of the ominous, slam-danceable "Angel" is undeniable; it evokes "Come Together" reinterpreted by a karaoke band of junkies.
-- Pamela Murray Winters -WASHINGTON POST
Dirty Little Secret is alternately sassy, sultry and retro and modern. Whalen comfortably leaps across genres, proving that her jump-jazz past was just the tip of the iceberg of what shes capable of.
-- PERFORMING SONGWRITER, JULY/AUGUST
AOL Music Staff Picks Jazz!
AOL Music Staff Picks Folk!
The former Squirrel Nut Zippers vocalist used to sound a lot like Billie Holiday, but thankfully she's now found her own style. Katherine Whalen leaves the retro swing sound behind for a suave blend of modern beats and groovy '60s sounds that grab at everything from old records to James Bond soundtracks. Most tracks are so infectiously good- humored that this can't qualify as downtempo -- but fans of acts like Shivaree or Portishead will still want to listen in.
- Nick Dedina RHAPSODY
Three Blind Mice by Katharine Whalen
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There are New Orleans-inspired second-line street parade rhythms, sultry ballads, happy time romps and a closing song, Blur,
that could easily be a message-in-a-bottle note from the other end of the world. Todays tip: Meet Me by the Fire is a summer anthem, one of those songs that comes around every few years to light up the airwaves with excitement, paving the way for at least two more months of self-delusion of the highest order and the promise that the real world is taking an extended siesta. Maybe thats the real dirty little secret Whalen is letting us in on with the albums title: schools out forever.
BILL BENTLEY, Neil Young's Publicist and frm SR VP Warner from STUDIO CITY SUN
A luscious array of jazz crooning over trip-hop beats and cabaret sensuality, Katharine Whalen drafts the script for a futuristic burlesque show that never stops. Dizzying and dazzling, Whalen dreams up masterpieces of exotica for decadent nightclubs with her eccentric and seductive charm. Picture the Squirrel Nut Zippers crossed with Portishead, then grab a martini for this mleange of the neurotic and erotic.
DOWNLOAD.COM
"On her startling new solo album, Dirty Little Secret, Sale sets Whalen's jazz croon against modern electronic effects and percolating rhythms, with impeccable popcraft. The title track sounds like something Burt Bacharach might have written for Dusty Springfield."
David Menconi- RALEIGH NEWS AND OBSERVER
plenty of blazing hot, sultry numbers -- NASHVILLE CITY PAPER
Appropriate for any number of nightclubs..."Dirty Little Secret" is soaked in the hedonistic trappings of a diversified nightlife, conveyed by Whalen with a casually self-possessed persona that beguiles with sultry swagger and sassy smack-downs.
CHUCK CAMPBELL - Knoxville News Sentinel
"Swaths of hip-hop and traces of pop-rock color the tracks, picking up the beats to a zestful frenzy that turns an otherwise ordinary experience into an extraordinary experience.
- Alexander Rogers - CELEBRITY CAFE
like Debbie Harry at her most Beguiling ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER
"Squirrel no more."
Katherine Whalen, former front woman for the roaring swing band the Squirrel Nut Zippers, has left the rodents in the park as she lets loose on her first solo record in seven years. It's been seven years too long. The moment you press play be prepared to be knocked off your feet by Whalen's breathy vocals (imagine Macy Gray in a smokey jazz club). One moment, Whalen is deeply crooning. In the next, she's grabbing your libido with her sexy, lilting voice.
With songs like "Dirty Little Secret," Whalen shows she can be easily accessible and radio friendly while maintaining a high-class air to her work. Dirty Little Secret runs the gamut of Whalen's abilities from big band swing and soulful ballads to pop with a touch of electronic flare and every conceivable combination in between.
Dirty Little Secret is leaps and bounds better than Whalen's pervious offerings from Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad. Hotter than hell, Whalen's talent makes us yearn for more. Add the talented David Sale of the band Camus, who not only played all the instruments on the record but also produced the album, and you have an amazing disc you must not pass up.
Sean R. Grogan - EARVOULTION
"Lasciviously enticing vocals that meander over jazzily animated rhythms and surf-inspired guitar make for a delightful melange suitable for the most scandalous Parisian burlesque show. Sensual and inviting beyond words, Katharine Whalen (Kat) reminds me of bands like the Get Hustle that take an otherwise vibrant and jubilant music and turn its head to face the shadow side. The result is swing-noir par excellence. Yummy."
- Scott's TOP TEN list at Download.com
"Anachronistic musical tracks that sound like a cross between Latin,sampled jazz, and the Motown Remixed series paired with Whalen's hot vox make for intriguing, and highly welcome, bedfellows."
- Ryan Gillespie - POP MATTERS
an album that bears no real resemblance to anything she's previously tracked..."Secrets" is an idiosyncratic pop album... tunes such as the title track, "Angel" and "Meet Me by the Fire" are catchy, they're also more bent than run-of-the-mill pop songs... Whalen's versatility and talent carry her through.
BILLBOARD MAGAZINE
There was a seven year gap between Dirty Little Secret, Katharine Whalen's sophomore release, and her debut. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the two albums are worlds apart stylistically with the only constant being the singer's retro vocals. She has abandoned the smoky, Billie Holiday style that was a logical extension of her work with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, for a lounge/spy music/'60s avant-pop that suits her just as well and arguably better. Although she gets top billing on the front cover, the success of the album should go equally to David Sale (ex-Camus). He writes or co-writes the songs, plays every instrument, engineered all but two tracks, and is clearly the driving force behind the project. Whalen is in fine voice, but it's the production that shares and often dominates the spotlight. These heavily overdubbed songs exude a chilly, frisky, occasionally dreamy go-go quality, somewhere between trip-hop, Vegas jazz, and Austin Powers. The brassy bongo-driven attack of the opening, "The Funnest Game," makes it sound like it came off the soundtrack of a Sean Connery era James Bond flick. Instruments fade in and out during tunes and the programmed drums bring a contemporary feel, even as a song such as "Meet Me by the Fire" recalls girl group aesthetics. Just when you think you've got the album figured out, it shifts direction, eluding your grasp but beckoning you back for another spin. "The Garden" is built on tropical percussion, wandering trumpet, and staccato keyboards as Whalen double-tracks vocals in a bizarre but sexy moan. "Want You Back" imagines a Peggy Lee, Herb Alpert, and John Barry mash-up and the techno beat, mariachi trumpets, and '60s drama of "In the Night" is both winsome and vivid.
Hal Horowtz ALL MUSIC GUIDE
The former Squirrel Nut Zippers vocalist trades in her cabaret for lounge on Dirty Little Secret, distancing herself from the old-fashioned jump blues and jazz swing of her old outfit. While Whalen's wonderful voice would be winning in just about any band, David Sale's rich, varied production transposes it into exotic mixes that sound like space-age bachelor pad music.
The curtain-raiser, "The Funnest Game," sets the tone with '60s-spy-music guitar and bossa nova horns slinking over skittering percussion, all while Whalen coos her tale of betrayal. The album's highlight is the title track, a rootsy Ricki Lee Jones-style confessional sprinkled with Herb Alpert horns and a touch of mainstream piano pop. Whalen is the key, as she demonstrates with her particularly nice turn on the soul-inflected "You-Who." The cover of a song by Sale's old San Diego band, Camus, mines the infectious dance bounce of Aretha's "Who's Zooming Who?"
Sale plays piano and some guitar, but most of the arrangements are samples and assemblages. Not that you'd notice, because much like Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, Sale ensures that it sounds seamlessly organic. He occasionally sabotages himself (the distracting house beat underscoring the Latin jazz of "Three Blind Mice"), but at a party this crazy, something's bound to break.
Chris Parker - CLEVELAND SCENE
Six years removed from the '90s swing/jump-blues trend with which Katharine Whalen's former group, Squirrel Nut Zippers, was affiliated, the band's ex-singer uses her sophomore solo outing to dabble in soundscapes and loops. Despite traversing the same kind of ethereal creative path better associated with the likes of Beth Orton and Gibbons, Whalen still infuses plenty of her jazz influences into a mix presided over by ex-Camus multi-instrumentalist/producer David Sale. What the duo come up with are pastiches of chugging lounge, trip-hop-ish pop and faux bossa nova prompted by a mishmash of beats, sampled horn arrangements and muted beeps. Even though these ideas occasionally overreach, Whalen's evolution from her retro roots is a step in a promising direction.
Dave Gil de Rubio - LONG ISLAND PRESS
As one of the lead singers for the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Katherine Whalen specialized in retro tunes steeped in swing jazz, blues and old-timey Americana. So it's refreshing to hear her take a contemporary turn on her first solo disc in seven years.
BOULDER DAILY CAMERA "HOT 5"
