Karina Deniké spent her formative years on the move, so perhaps it’s not surprising that her songs are filled with travelers and seekers, restless wanderers and mordant observers.
Born in the United Kingdom to Czech artists in exile after the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring in 1968, she spent her childhood performing street theater across Europe, North Africa and India.
As a teen she settled with her family in Berkeley, falling in with jazz musicians and the punk scene around 924 Gilman. Over the past two decades she’s been an essential part of the Bay Area arts community, from providing powerhouse vocals in the ska-punk band Dance Hall Crashers in the 1990s to collaborating with Fat Mike and Jeff Marx on their recent rock musical "Home Street Home."
But her new album, "Under Glass," is Deniké’s first project fully devoted to her own music and, not surprisingly, it’s impossible to pigeonhole.