Kara-Lis Coverdale, also known as K-LC, is a Canadian composer, musician, p… Read Full Bio ↴Kara-Lis Coverdale, also known as K-LC, is a Canadian composer, musician, producer, based in Montreal. Coverdale is known equally for her piano, organ, and keyboard work as she is for her experimental electronic projects; often her work integrates the two, blurring the lines between traditional composition and research-based modernism.

Coverdale began studying music and piano at age 5. An improvisational virtuoso at a young age, she had composed and performed her own music before age 10.Her mother is an Estonian visual artist and her father a builder and entrepreneur. She was a competitive pianist until she went to Music school at Western University, where she studied piano, composition, and musicology with Gwen Beamish, Omar Daniel, David Myska, and Jay Hodgson. Canadian pianist Ann Southam presented her with the promising young artist award at at The Contemporary Music Showcase in Toronto. At Western Coverdale became captivated by the practice of electroacoustic music and began integrating electronics and digital processes into her work. The Kurzweil K2500 was the first sampler she ever worked with. Her Masters thesis is a study of timbre and realism in recorded music which addresses how "reality" is constructed through sound design and recording technology.

Since age 13, Coverdale has been primary organist and music director at several churches across Canada. Sacred music is an influence in her acoustic composition work, as is Estonian choral and folk music. She claims to be a saturationist, and says Napster has been her biggest influence.

Coverdale moved to Montreal in 2010, and took a new position as organist at St. John's church in NDG. Since 2011, Coverdale has collaborated live and in studio with electronic composer Tim Hecker, most notably on his 2013 album Virgins.[5] She has also collaborated with the digital information artist LXV (David Sutton). In 2012 she self-released a series of solo piano pieces called Triptych. In 2013 she composed music for Wind Controller called "Conversion Music" which was premiered at LMCML by Montreal clarinetist Suzu Enns. A rework of that piece appears as X4EWI" on Coverdale's 2015 solo album Aftertouches, released by Sacred Phrases in March, 2015. Coverdale is also a frequent collaborator with the writer Kara Crabb.

A480

In 2013 Coverdale released a series of vocal pieces called A 480 that "index the nature of the voice in the age of data." A 480 is accompanied by .nfo scores (an .nfo is a hacker scene release release that accompanies a crack), which contain 'information about the sources of the A 480 audio texts, transformation procedures used to arrange and compose them into their present form, and keyword routes of re-creation." She calls them "bad scores" in the sense that they "do not offer performer the clearest instructions to produce an exact re-creation of the composer's authoritative creation... an .nfo score is more like a treasure map than an inclusive set of rules." The virtual chorales of A 480 comprise compositions of actual recorded singers that have been unpersonally sourced, downloaded, then disembodied, disfigured, and displaced over forty times, then arranged into temporally affected four-part fugues. "The pre-composed voices are curationally divided into short loops of different lengths in MAX and played at different speeds across 4 different channels. Slight temporal variations fade in and out over time in constant flux, occasionally pausing for immersion in a pulse chamber before it moves onto another. The length of the looped samples are adjusted one at a time— lengthened and shortened, and at times switched out altogether, to reveal how seemingly minute temporal variations have impactful effects on overarching rhythm, melody, and energy."
Aftertouches

Aftertouches is often described as part of a new school of enterprising electronic artists that lean heavily into electronic adventuring, both conceptually and sonically, "as if to experiment with the very building blocks of musical beauty... to speak a language that not everyone speaks yet" (Adam Harper, The Fader).Compared to its experimentalist contemporaries, Aftertouches approaches experimentalism with a more symphonic calculation and leaning towards composition, weaving both physical and technological realms to creates a series of celestial modern classical miniatures. The Wire describes Aftertouches as "...the textless, fleshless voice-keyboard, the lingering foggy sublime of CPU-washed tone granules, the modular serialism of object oriented processes. The various parts are often starkly separated in colour and harmony, but the overall shape flows on smoothly either still learning from and resolving its experiences, or in thrall to an aesthetic that's beyond the horizon" (The Wire, issue 376, June 2015).For Adhoc, Neil Lord writes "The sweeping moments of beauty are balanced with stabs of electronic grit: an acrylic portrait of a Cronenberg-esque organism, morphing, half human, half machine."Aftertouches was named one of the best 25 records of the first half of 2015 by Adhoc, and was called "a true masterwork from a still young artist" by Bobby Power in Decoder.

Discography
Albums

A 480 (2014, Constellation Tatsu)
Aftertouches (2015, Sacred Phrases)
Sirens (with LXV) (2014, Umor Rex)

EPs

Triptych for Solo Piano (2012, Gate)

Scoring Work

Royal Jelly (2014) by Kara Crabb.
The Reproductive Life Cycle of a Flower (2015) by Kara Crabb.

Session, Production, Mixing Work

Virgins - Tim Hecker - 2013, Kranky (Keyboards and Piano)
Massacred for Gold -Tim Hecker, 2013, Dir. Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott) (Keyboards for Film Score).
Patterns of Excel - Lee Bannon, 2015, Ninja Tune (Keyboards and Piano, Arrangem

Moments In Love
Kara-Lis Coverdale Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Can't make up my mind
Then I'm back in time
And I feel it all again
Sense is left behind
My heart hits rewind
And I'm nowhere near the end

Make things harder than they have to be

I keep on falling even though I know I'll bleed
I fall in love so easily (easily easily)

Maybe (maybe)
I'm just in love with love (I'm just in love with love)
Baby (baby)
I just can't get enough (I just can't get enough)
Maybe (maybe)
I like the butterflies
Baby
Got feelings on the rise

I've been convinced
It's done and over with
Yeah heard that all before
Soon as my heart aches
A second's all it takes
And it's you I'm longing for

Make things harder than they have to be
I keep on falling even though I know I'll bleed
I fall in love so easily (easily easily)

Maybe (maybe)
I'm just in love with love (I'm just in love with love)
Baby (baby)
I just can't get enough (I just can't get enough)
Maybe (maybe)
I like the butterflies
Baby
Got feelings on the rise

Can't make up my mind then I'm back in time
And I feel it all again
Yeah

Maybe I'm just in love with love
(Make things harder than they have to be)
Baby I just can't get enough
(Keep on falling even though I'll bleed)
Maybe I like the butterflies
(Fall in love so easily)

Baby got feelings on the rise
(Keep on falling even though I'll bleed)

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Kara-Lis Coverdale's song "Moments In Love" describe the struggle of falling in love easily and being unable to control it. The opening lines "Can't make up my mind, then I'm back in time, And I feel it all again" suggest that the singer is constantly experiencing the same feeling of falling in love, even if the context is different. The singer acknowledges that she is making things harder than they have to be and is aware that she will probably get hurt in the process, but she continues to fall in love.

The chorus contains the lines "Maybe I'm just in love with love, Baby I just can't get enough, Maybe I like the butterflies, Baby got feelings on the rise." These lines suggest that the singer is addicted to the feeling of falling in love, even if it is fleeting and temporary, and that she is willing to go through the pain just to experience it again. The lyrics speak to the power of emotions and the way they can overwhelm us, even if we know better.

Overall, Coverdale's lyrics are relatable and poignant, highlighting the ways in which we can become addicted to the feeling of falling in love, even if it is illogical or irrational. The lyrics are brought together with a beautifully haunting melody, creating a dreamy, melancholic mood that complements the bittersweet lyrics.

Line by Line Meaning

Can't make up my mind
I am indecisive about my feelings

Then I'm back in time
Memories flood my mind and take me back

And I feel it all again
I experience the intense emotions all over again

Sense is left behind
Logic and reason are forgotten

My heart hits rewind
My heart wants to relive the past moments of love

And I'm nowhere near the end
There is no closure, I am still longing

Make things harder than they have to be
I complicate relationships and love

I keep on falling even though I know I'll bleed
I continue to pursue love even though I know it may end in hurt

I fall in love so easily (easily easily)
I am quick to develop romantic feelings and fall deep

Maybe (maybe)
Perhaps

I'm just in love with love (I'm just in love with love)
My infatuation is with the concept of love itself