About
Growing up, Kiki Deirdre was introduced to the music of artists like Leonard Cohen, The Waterboys, Melanie, and The Pogues. At the age of twelve she discovered Mahogany & Cardinal Sessions, leading to contemporary folk music influences such as Rachel Sermanni, Lisa Hannigan, Villagers, and Johnny Flynn. By listening to artists such as these, and reading the works of great writers like Allen Ginsberg and Rainer Maria Rilke, she developed a fascination for intimate, personal music, and poem-like lyrics that inspired her to start playing guitar and writing her own songs.
At thirteen, she recorded her first song in a small classroom at her high school. After that, most of the songs she wrote were poems set to music — simple, personal, cryptic, but full of potential. She often wrote about her confusion and struggle to find her place in a world she couldn't understand. This confusion manifested directly in her music and writing; often oddly structured, very long or short songs, poems, or stories played on a stratocaster or steel-string guitar.
Throughout her teenage years, her passion for music and language was fuelled even further by performing at small, local venues and open mic nights throughout The Netherlands. In her early twenties, she started to find more structure in her songwriting, and her songs also started to touch upon more universal themes. Around that same time she felt a need to develop her artistic skills further, and started studying at the Conservatory of Utrecht. It was around this time that she swapped her Stratocaster for a nylon string guitar, and formed the Americana folk band Het Volk together with musician friends Noah Hassler-Forest, Wouter Torringa and Nemo Arends. For a couple of years they shared the stage, and busked around in The Netherlands, sharing their love for story and song with audiences. In 2022, they released a live album featuring original Bluegrass and folk songs. However, shortly after their debut album, the band decided to take a break from performing together to focus on their solo projects. To this day Kiki Deirdre's repertoire still mainly consists of songs appreciating the sound of the acoustic guitar. You can say that her current music is a mix of her old and new songwriting styles — both cryptic and painfully direct, with a critical perspective on today's society.
In June 2024, she released her debut novel and album How's Life?, a project she worked on for two and a half years. The lyric dense music, inspired by the novel's storyline, explores themes such as the complexities of human existence, the search for meaning, and interpersonal relationships, all through the eyes of the main character, Suzie Saol.
Discography
Novel How's Life? (2024), exclusively available as softcover.
Album How's Life? (2024), full album exclusively available on Bandcamp and vinyl.
Album Childish Old Souls (2022), collaboration with Het Volk.
Singles Quick Luck and Roam (2021)
EP Entwined (2017), exclusively available on CD.