For more than 30 years, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ken Kase has been delighting fans and defying musical expectations through a wide range of musical projects from his adopted home base in St. Louis, MO.
A native of Trumbull, Connecticut, Kase grew up in a fertile musical home. His mother was a classical violinist, and his brother, Chris Kase is a jazz trumpeter and music educator who lives in Madrid. Ken taught himself to play guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums before he was 18 years old, while soaking up influences from every genre: Bach to the Beatles, bebop to blues, bar-bands and beyond.
All of that informed Kase's own music, which defies easy categorization. The common thread: each of his projects through the years has garnered critical acclaim and shown the hallmarks for which he's come to be known: exceptional musical skill, inventive yet accessible songwriting, and a keen sense of adventure and fun.
That's held true from his early years fronting the playful/soulful Groupers, through The Ken Kase Group's heyday as one of St. Louis' most revered live acts, and his adjunct and ongoing membership in power-pop dynamos, The Sun Sawed in 1/2
More recent projects have continued to showcase Kase's diversity — from the more subtle shades of his work for The Birthday People with Mike Schrand to the funkier, jazzy vibes of his instrumental and experimental Corpus Alienum releases.
The multi-talented Kase is also a writer, and a photographer. The latter is a surprise to some given that he's legally blind, the result of a rare congenital condition called achromatopsia, which he's written about in song and via print/online. In 2023, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He continues to work and receive treatments. “Nothing will stop me from making albums, says Ken. “I have a full 2024 with new recording projects and I’m thinking of doing a fundraiser event for MS this year.” Read Ken’s blog entry about his diagnosis here.
Ken Kase Releases New Eponymously-Titled EP. 8/23
St. Louis, MO- Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Ken Kase released a five-song EP, the eponymously-titled Ken Kase. The first collection of solo material on which Kase sings and performs nearly all the instrumentation, Ken Kase returns him to the sounds of earlier pop-rock work that was lauded for its impeccable song craft, sense of musical adventure, and high production values.
“The songs on the EP were mostly recorded ten years ago,” says Kase. “I had plans to make a solo album on which I played most of the parts, but halfway through I lost the ambition and the song ideas didn't come so easily anymore. So I started the Corpus Alienum project instead and wrote and produced three albums of instrumental music, which I found to be much more fun to do. That, and working on other albums as a singer and instrumentalist, is what I've been doing for the last decade or so. I just wanted to get these songs off my workbench."
The EP contains Kase's original compositions "Entitled", "Cambrian Explosion", "Philosophy Machine", "Quality Control", and "The Big Whatever". Two of those songs trace their roots to earlier projects, but were finished or updated with a perspective that only decades as a musician, writer, and producer offer.
"The songs hold up pretty well after years away from them. I wrote "Philosophy Machine" thirty years ago and "Quality Control" is a tune that dates from 2008. I knew I was holding on to good material, and I think my judgement on songs that didn't make the cut were spot on back then.” says Kase. “I'm better at recording, mixing and editing now than I was when I started, so I'm glad it took so long because I have the skills now to make it sound better.”
Ken Kase is now available via Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, and other streaming platforms.