John Mayer says -
Keppie’s “voice is beautiful, just gorgeous. [She’s] like a contemporary female Nick Drake…and [her] guitar playing is so beautiful, so raw…”
October 2008
The Boston Globe (September 2008) -
"Coutts's songs marry soul and folk so gorgeously, you'll cheer when they get stuck on endless repeat on the jukebox in your brain."
The Boston Globe (August 2008) -
"Coutts...may remind you Feist and Ingrid Michaelson."
Keppie is immersed and reveling in the new wave of folk fusion – an eclectic melding of acoustic-based song that steps inside jazz, soul, and quirky pop. Multi-Grammy award-winning artist John Mayer heard a new tune of Keppie’s (‘Waiting for the Avalanche’) and within a week, had taken it into the studio in Boston to record. Keppie had scored a private audience with Mayer as one of 12 young songwriters hand-selected to spend the week with Mayer.
Since arriving in Boston in 2005 she has won the praise of peers, audiences and mentors, having won both the Performing Songwriter Competition, and the Songwriter's Showcase Competition - the two most prestigious showcases the Berklee College of Music presents to display its best talent. She has performed extensively in the Northeast of the United States, including at the Bitter End and the Bowery Poetry Club in New York, as well almost every conceivable venue in Boston.
Born in Australia, Keppie started out spreading her words as poetry at local Sydney arts haunts and indie spaces. Very quickly the words found a canvas of music, and almost as quickly she was thrust into the recording studio. Chris Dubrow, former front-man of Australian political-industrial-rock group Insurge (Sydney Big Day Out, 1997) instantly recognized the strength of Keppie’s writing and brought her into his recording studio, producing her first album, “On the Edge of a Dream”.
The immediate connection that she forms with an audience saw Keppie performing at some of Sydney’s best-known venues for live music, including the Excelsior, the Gaelic Club, the Seymour Centre, and international jazz-hub, The Basement as part of a selection of the city’s best songwriters. Keppie’s collaboration with sound engineer, Jason Mannell (who has produced Oz mega-rock group Jet), and separately with Sean Carey (currently in Oz super band Thirsty Merc), saw the release of “Tears De Picardie” to a sell-out launch show held at the Goldfish Bowl in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
To her surprise and delight, people often approach Keppie after shows, making excited comparisons to Norah Jones, Ani DiFranco, KT Tunstall, and Feist, though as one fan put it: “You sound like a million different women and like no one else”.
Keppie’s 2009 release, ‘The Ordinary World’, is now available on iTunes and is distributed through CD Baby.