Kat Frankie

Kathryn Mellander (born 8 July 1978), who performs as Kat Frankie is an Australian-born singer-songwriter and guitarist. She relocated to Berlin in December 2004 and has issued four solo studio albums, Pocketknife (September 2007), The Dance of a Stranger Heart (September 2010), Please Don’t Give Me What I Want (September 2012) and Bad Behaviour (January 2018).

Biography

Kat Frankie was born Kathryn Mellander on 8 July 1978 in Sydney, Australia. She grew up with her mother in the Sydney suburbs of Darlinghurst and Surry Hills. She briefly joined a school choir but did not receive formal music lessons but taught herself to sing and from the age of 17 how to play guitar.

Frankie, as Mellander, completed an architectural design course at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. In August 2001, together with a fellow college student, Mellander co-designed a shop window display for Empire Homeware, in Paddington as part of Sydney Design Week. By 2004 she was working for Dale Jones-Evans, an architect and development firm, where she was part of a team that designed and built the "Art Wall" in Surry Hills.

Frankie cited her early musical influences as PJ Harvey and Fiona Apple. She initially performed as a solo artist, on vocals and acoustic guitar, from June 2002. She was still working as an architectural designer and part-time musician. She had intended to travel for about a year before settling down to work, however she found a welcoming community in Berlin's Kreuzberg as her "new home". Berlin Song was premiered at the 57th Berlinale in February 2007, which Artes Nana Rebhan observed, "succeeded in making an atmospheric and poetic film that confirms why it is so good to live in this city." She explained to Carlisle Rogers of 3D Staging how it was recorded at various venues in Berlin, with numerous local artists, over the previous two years. To promote the album in Australia she undertook a solo acoustic tour during September.

Pocketknife was released in Germany in January 2008 via Solaris Empire. Her third album, Please Don't Give Me What I Want, appeared in September 2012. Both albums, "had a cadence informed by singer-songwriter pop, but her music grew ever richer and more diverse. [Her] discovering and beginning to work with a loop station was a big reason for that." She also collaborated with Get Well Soon's Konstantin Gropper to write, "When You're Near Me", the title theme song for German TV talk show, Schulz und Böhmermann (from 2016) – which pairs Schulz with satirist, Jan Böhmermann. Keøma had entered, "Protected", to qualify for Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in February of that year.

She released, Bad Behaviour, her fourth solo album in February 2018 through Grönland Records. It peaked in the top 100 on the German albums chart.

Discography

Albums

Pocketknife (3 September 2007) – Gazelle/Vitamin Records The Dance of a Stranger Heart (September 2010) – Zellephan Please Don't Give Me What I Want (September 2012) – Zellephan GER No. 72

Keøma Keøma (2016) – Embassy of Sound

Extended plays

Outside. Now. (December 2003) – Independent/MGM Distribution

Singles

"The Tops" (February 2007) "Serves You Right for Using Violence" (August 2007) "Frauen Verlassen" (October 2011) "Bad Behaviour" (September 2017) "Home" (December 2017) "Du/Ich" (November 2018)