Katie Gately

The record comes with the lyrics but they're printed semi-randomly on a 2' x 3' poster so for the purposes of navigation it's like trying to read a map in a gale

This album is an incredible rush. It's been a while since I've heard a record that made me want to immediately play the whole thing back-to-back on repeat, but that's what I've done four times in a row now.

still not sure quite what to make of this yet, but I'm enjoying not getting it

Just found out about this album this week. Really loving it. Very industrial and much more accessible than I was expecting

omgggggggg how have I never listened to this artist before. "Pivot" and this new album are destroying me.

I forgot I hadn't heard it when I last posted itt. Have now of course, bloody love it.

Glad Tim's catching up with this, the s/t record on Public Information is also a must.

I am obsessed with this album. It hits each and every one of my "more is more is more" maximalist buttons.

If it's a "pop" album, it's pop in the sense of The Dreaming, or Laika's Silver Apples from the Moon and Moonshake's The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow and Pram's Helium, or New Kingdom's Paradise Don't Come Cheap, or (the better parts of) The Knife's Shaking The Habitual or more uptempo parts of Bjork's Medulla: forcibly harnessing cacophony to pop forms, though I'd describe it as more exacting and extreme than any of those in the lengths it goes.

There's a moment in "Sift" - you know it when it arrives - when Gately sculpts this moment of build - inversion - explosion which is as impressive an example of the manipulation of "pop" (in the broadest sense") sonic dynamics as I can think of.

I want to know what Matt DC and Dan Perry and the Lex think of this record too.

This is probably my AOTY, I'm realising.

team tim / team imago SONIC MELD (more the case every year tbf)

'sift' is an amazing composition yeah :) nice little write-up

"Tuck" sounds like Annie to me. Have to hear the whole album as that song unconvinced me, but the praise on the thread is encouraging.

"Tuck" is, I suppose, the most "pop" song here, but even then only in a relative sense, and in context I think it takes on more of the dark vibe of the album than it may in isolation - her "Peek-A-Boo" perhaps.

I could come up with potentially dubious points of comparison for this album but they'd typically be theatrical nineties stuff (Ruby? The electronic parts of Tori Amos' late nineties work?) rather than 00s stabs at "perfect" pop.

Another reference point for me would be HEALTH's 'Death Magic' from last year.

this album is magnificent

this isn't a precise comparison but the turn toward doom metal at the end reminds me of portishead's third

also i'm listening to this record hungover which is the most masochistic thing i've done in ages but it works really well this way too

Seems like a weird time to be hungover, for what it's worth.

But hey, no judgment either.

office holiday parties kill, miko

Coffee and crullers. And Katie Gately.

Fucking good album

This gets better the more I spin it. Will make my EOY list easy.

Re contemporary reference points Empress Of venns with this well. Not yet into anything on the album quite as much as 'Tuck' though.

"Sift" is brazen experimental pop at its best. The closest analog I can think to this is Wendy Carlos' "Beauty in The Beast" by Wendy Carlos. She did a similar thing where she approached the funhouse of pop music through an esoteric lense.

^ sorry for double mention up there

Wendy Carlos Wendy

I actually get a Tool/Maynard vibe on the title track.

Love this album. 'Lift' is the best use of an eski bassline in ages.

There are some fun videos on the Ableton site about how she uses field recordings in her work:

https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/katie-gately-sampling-her-world/

Color really holds up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3z4VwHin98

she's back, in longform

yeah I heard the other day, liked it. i mean it takes her nine and a half minutes to get to the really good stuff but I guess that's the point

Fucking hell yes. Totally forgot about her! Thanks for this.

I think the “takes her nine and a half minutes to get to the really good stuff” structure basically reflects her approach on “Pivot” and it works here for the same reasons it worked there, though otherwise this feels like a logical next step from the last album. It also feels like a 10 minute + epic inspired by the final minute of Kate Bush’s “Leave It Open”.

She posted on social media yesterday some personal background to the song:

thanks so very much to everyone kindly sharing 10.5 minutes with me & ‘Bracer’ this past week.

wanted to share a bit on how/why I made this track below in the off chance someone listening may have struggled with the same issues pic.twitter.com/OM6mXBlQ7T

— Katie Gately (@kgsounds) November 13, 2019

whoa 'Tower'

no wait 'Flow'

some good stuff as per

this fucking rules

as expected

Yes, this is good.

She's great. On Houndstooth instead of Tri Angle, interesting.

So far it sounds like what I wanted the Holly Herndon album to be.

Was not super into her other album but I’m digging this so far.

This is really good. “Bracer” was an under appreciated song last year out of context, but it sounds utterly monumental at the heart of the LP.

Bracer is, ahem, bracing.

Yeah it's sounding so much better now

xp -- artist's statement is really interesting because I like "Bracer" a lot but didn't get that from it at all

This is great. It's very captivating and focused. I've not untangled the "story" yet but she takes me into her world with ease. Will be spending more time with this for sure.

perfect album

It really is solid from start to finish. I need to revisit it; I like it much better than Color on only one listen. Color sounded a bit campy both with her vocals and the drums. This is focused, intense, and much more of a mature sound. It's often a trope, but for as much as tragedy often disrupts our world, it can also elevate an artist's muse to such heights of creation too.