SISKIN are Galen Ayers and Kirsty Newton ; two very different girls from very different backgrounds who were lucky to discover that they could make beautiful music together.
Galen’s life has been one of constant travel and change. Daughter of Soft Machine founder member and later maverick cult legend Kevin Ayers, she was born into a creative and unconventional world.
Her development as a songwriter started at a very young age, with her poetry being published when she was eleven years old. Her writing was already infused with the sea breeze from the shores of her Spanish hometown, the famously eclectic Deia. At the age of fifteen, she came to the UK and, armed with her trusty guitar, started to add music to her words. Her interests include painting and Tibetan art. Last year she completed a Master’s degree in Buddhism from the London university SOAS, and is currently completing another Masters, this time in Psychology of Religion. Galen has had the honour of working with such established talents as Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club and Richard Lloyd from Television.
Kirsty grew up in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and has been singing and playing all her life. Blessed with a gifted ear, she began banging out tunes on the glockenspiel at two years old and is classically trained on the piano and oboe, but set her heart on a slightly rockier career. Aged just twelve, she put together her first group in order to perform the songs she had started to write and after moving to London six years later, joined several grown-up bands and taught herself bass guitar, claiming she was bored of being just a backing singer.
In addition to being "Miss Newton the music teacher" to various children in southwest London, Kirsty has been involved in a vast array of musical projects, most recently recording, touring and performing on TV and radio with acclaimed comedian Mitch Benn as one half of The Distractions.
These two diverse musicians finally found each other three years ago and formed the band GALEN, along with Rowan Diamond, Ivan Sheppard and Ewan Nowak. In May 2005, the band GALEN played their final gig at the Kentish Town Forum, supporting They Might Be Giants, before calling it a day last summer. Having established that they were not only great musical partners, but also the best of friends, the girls decided to continue making music together and became KG, with Galen on acoustic guitar and Kirsty ..boards and bass. The intimate nature of their songs, both lyrically and musically, combined with their unusual and intricate harmonies soon caught the attention of audiences across the London circuit and beyond. Recent gigs in Brussels have brought exciting new recording opportunities and interest from major labels.
With the future looking increasingly bright, Kirsty and Galen are now starting anew as SISKIN and are continually developing and improving their unique sound. Their aim is to create a world of beautiful and thought-provoking music you can lose yourself in... ’
