Today experimental musician and producer Katie Gately returns with a fresh collage of captured sounds, announcing details of her new album Fawn / Brute for March 31 release on Houndstooth. Along with the announcement she has shared the album’s two title tracks, a double single of the album’s title tracks, ‘Fawn’ and ‘Brute’.
Following her highly acclaimed 2020 album Loom, in which Gately channelled the loss of her mother through sounds captured from earthquakes, elephant trumpets, cantaloupe stabs and more, she returns with a new clutch of gathered sounds to continue the intimate look at her maternal line. Fawn / Brute is 11 songs of innocence and experience exploring the light and dark of childhood energy following the birth of her first daughter. It’s an album of two halves, moving from the effervescence of early years to the defiance and turbulence of teenage angst.
The album is dedicated to Gately’s young daughter Quinn, born in 2021 and single ‘Fawn’, taken from the first half of the album, is a love letter to her. Meanwhile accompanying single ‘Brute’ embodies the darker second half of the record, its massive basslines constructed from the manipulated rattling of cardboard shoeboxes.
Gately comments: “‘Fawn’ is an attempt to capture the delirium and mania of new parenthood. The song’s instrumental is meant to capture the buoyancy and enthusiasm of youth while lyrically acknowledging the doubt and uncertainty of one’s new role as “parent”.’Brute’ is a love song for old vices, a reminder that parenthood doesn’t automatically mature us into respectable people. The song is a tug of war between responsibility and nonchalance; a struggle that is only intensified by the relentless demands of parenting.
“Together, the songs symbolize the dichotomy of parenthood. You’re a new person, guided by a fierce protective love, but you’re also still the same old bastard. You’re cranky when you don’t sleep and you lie to yourself about how many ounces are really in one glass of wine. You do the best you can and you pray things will turn out well enough… but really, you’re just winging it.”
Fawn / Brute:
- Seed
- Howl
- Fawn
- Cleave
- Peeve
- Scale
- Meat
- Brute
- Chaw
- Tame
- Melt
