"Barlow is at her best when giving free reign to her marvelous imagination and hybrid approach to construction and phrasing. A fine vocalist with unmistakeable traces of Joni Mitchell in her delivery, Barlow really shines as a lyricist."  Hank Davis, Goldmine Magazine

"Humour, lust, and empathy are the themes that run through Barlow’s songs; living in an environment where you can die if you wear the wrong clothes seems to have impressed her with a sense of life’s fleeting fragility."  Alexander Varty, The Georgia Straight

Kim Barlow is a leaf set in stone: jagged as a Yukon horizon; tender as spring. Her songs are wry and impassioned, deft distillations of the beautiful and absurd world she inhabits. Playing guitar, banjo, and cello, the Juno nominee uses her training as a classical musician to create complex and unexpected settings for her fables of lost children, plaints of lust, and songs of protest. Kim has also written and performed music for theatre, dance, storytelling and film.

Kim was born in Quebec, and raised in rural Nova Scotia. She graduated from Florida State University with a BA in music. She taught herself to play the banjo beside a campfire in the Yukon and from there embarked on an eccentric musical career that has taken her from Inuvik to the UK; and from Martha’s Vineyard to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. Along the way Kim produced 3 CDs and one son. Her second CD, Gingerbread was nominated for a Juno award in 2003 in the roots/traditional category. Her son hasn’t been nominated for any awards yet. He wants to be a firefighter.