Carmen Braden

Carmen Braden is a creator and performer of new, beautiful and sometimes weird music. She brings her songwriting depths to the live stage in dynamic, chamber-pop shows with her full band. Drawing deeply from her latest album “A Hard Light”, Carmen gently shifts the focus away from genre-bound expectations to craft a journeying arc with moments of 90’s electro-pop, folk, jazz and country. Praised for her “charismatic vocal performances, engaging lyrics and magnetic beats” (FV Music Blog UK) and compared to artists as wide-ranging as Joni Mitchell and Radiohead, Carmen’s music and her groove-rooted band makes space for shining textures and crystalline melodies. Her lyric-driven writing delves into the beauty and struggles of the everyday: reflecting parenthood, relationships, and the female body with joy, stark realness, and undercurrents of quirky humour.

Raised in Yellowknife, and now raising her own young family in the ‘knife, ya she likes it up north. Records ice sometimes, or ravens. Carmen has created lots of music for humans in groups like choirs, soloists and small classical cover bands (aka chamber music ensembles like string quartets), and the occasional orchestra. She’s got 4 super-different-sounding albums out in the world made with longtime producer Mark Adam and the latest one is so deadly: “A Hard Light” is all singer songwriter craft + studio crazy gorgeous. Some kind folks have said her songwriting is “quirky and clever...à la Joni Mitchell” (The WholeNote).