Kaïa Kater is an award-winning singer-songwriter and banjo player whose bold voice and literary songwriting have made her one of the most compelling artists in contemporary roots music. Her new album, Strange Medicine (Free Dirt Records), marks a fearless evolution: deeply personal yet expansive, it channels the power of oppressed voices throughout history—particularly women and people of the global majority—and reshapes it into lush, genre-blending soundscapes that pull from folk, jazz, minimalism, and film scores.

Co-produced with Joe Grass (Elisapie, The Barr Brothers) and featuring collaborators like Aoife O’Donovan, Allison Russell, and Taj Mahal, Strange Medicine is a tapestry of imagined and real stories—from Caribbean revolutionaries to Salem witches—interwoven with Kater’s own reflections on identity, creativity, and agency. Influenced by her time in Montréal and her background in film composition, she reclaims the banjo and Americana traditions through a distinctly Black feminist lens, defying the expectations often placed on her as a woman of color in roots music.

With accolades from NPR, Rolling Stone, Folk Alley, and beyond, Kater’s work has always pushed boundaries, but Strange Medicine is her most fearless yet—an intimate reckoning and celebration of self that invites listeners to sit with grief, defiance, and transformation. As she writes in dialogue with history, she makes space for the stories that haven’t been told—and carves out a future shaped by truth, power, and radical imagination.

“Kater is rapt, inquisitive, straining for intimate, embodied understanding that transcends mere familiarity.” –NPR

“…plaintive, mesmerizing…writes and performs with the skill of a folk-circuit veteran…” – Rolling Stone

“You want some authenticity in your folk music or bluegrass – I give you Kaïa Kater.” – No Depression

“A star in the making…” – Folk Alley

Vinegar Hill Music Theatre is an independently-owned event space located at 53 Old Post Road in Arundel, ME. Our charming, historic barn and outdoor garden provide an ideal backdrop for an unforgettable, intimate evening! Learn more here.

 

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Mike O’Hehir, the man at the heart of Coyote Island, is an old soul, but the music he’s crafted with his band and growing collection of diverse collaborators is as fresh as anything going today. From the breezy and bouncy mix of Caribbean beats and contemporary pop production that blasted “Here Before” into the post-pandemic public consciousness to the meditative and moody organ that makes “Shine through the Darkness” a glimmering beacon for lost souls, his songs are mood enhancements and attitude adjustments — perfect for a generation of music lovers looking for a path forward.

Now, to follow the breakout success of their 2023 album “Holy Illusion,” Coyote Island have released “Trust the Path,” featuring the Hip Abduction, the first single from a full-length they have plans to release this August. Much like everything to come from a band named for the coyote, often depicted as a wise and playful trickster in indigenous cultures, the sound is hard to pin down. It opens warm and inviting, walks into a skittering chorus, then brings in thundering drums and an ethereal guitar lead.

“You don’t have to please everyone/ You gotta listen to your soul now,” O’Hehir offers to open “Trust the Path,” and that sentiment is core to the Coyote Island ethos. As he has moved from itinerant troubadour criss-crossing the United States to rooted family man, he has put together a band fully invested in exploring the possibilities offered up by everything from reggae to folk, Afrobeats to Gypsy jazz, cumbia to psychedelia. Guitarist Amir Rivera, a co-writer on “Trust the Path,” is versatile and wily. Fans know anything can happen when he comes strutting toward the front of the stage. And the rhythm section of Garrett Jones on bass and Ryan Benoit on drums navigate the often complex rhythms in a way that makes them feel comfortable and familiar.

Not that you have to be some kind of musicologist to appreciate what Coyote Island is doing.

Like Khruangbin or Father John Misty, Vampire Weekend or Talking Heads, they take these authentic traditions and spin them into the future, bringing you along with them as they follow their own path, trusting that they’ll figure everything out along the way. Or won’t. It’s that sort of curiosity about the world that turns clubs into tent revivals, festivals into mystical experiences. The coyote is elusive, by nature. You sort of have to let go of the wheel and see what happens.

With new music on the way that will challenge anyone to predict what comes next, O’Hehir and crew find themselves creating deep connections to people via a shared vibration everyone can only hear for themselves: “It’s all about you,” he likes to tell folks. “You have to dance in authenticity.”

 

What does “General Admission” mean?

For General Admission events, all theater seats are removed from the floor to create an open space, with cocktail tables and barstools added for a more relaxed atmosphere. The number of tables and stools varies depending on the show and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Theater seating in the balcony will remain in place and is also first come, first serve.

If you require a seat or need accessibility accommodations, just let us know — we’re happy to help. You can reach us at info@vinhillmusic.com.

Vinegar Hill Music Theatre is an independently-owned event space located at 53 Old Post Road in Arundel, ME. Our charming, historic barn and outdoor garden provide an ideal backdrop for an unforgettable, intimate evening! Learn more here.