photo by Sydney Tate
The fluttering piano based melancholy folk confessional of "Bowerbird" by New York artist, singer-songwriter, musician Kait Warner is instantly dreamy, if darkly so, drawn in charcoal pencil, washed over in watercolor splashes. The blend of chamber music, folk, avant pop might feel off kilter to your ears and Warner's vocal harmonies might even bend right before breaking. The sense to me is not only mysterious but sad in a hollow way and wanting to be filled up:
"Bowerbird / I get blue / bring my sorrow / straight to you / in my marrow / cut to bone / I get sad / left alone / it's alright / and it's not fair / I take flight / I can't compare / it's a story / I've been told / more than this is / one life sold..."
This is the kind of song that poked at me but upon the first listen but I might have stepped back upon each poke until I decided to lean more into it. It, in fact, sat upon my shoulder like a sparrow intent on not leaving. The melodies and overall sound that increasingly feels more surreal the more you absorb it captures that kind of indie film-esque quality that I like. If "Bowerbird" was a film it would be an A24 film, it would be love torn story coated with a mild patina of existential dread and star Faye Tsakas and Mackie Mallison (smiling) and midway through it would have a startling tonal shift.
LINER NOTES (excerpts):
Kait Warner wrote the single, Bowerbird, from her upcoming debut album, "Rodeo Clown", after falling in love with her best friend of 10 years. As she descended into the confusing storm of new love, Kait became obsessed with passages from Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, a resonant masterwork on grief and love themed around the bowerbird. While in the throes of new love, she was experiencing the profound grief of letting go of the wounds from a former relationship in order to fully be present and experience this new love.
“I felt deeply vulnerable and afraid that that sadness might be too great for another person to love, or worse, that I might bring out the sadness in the loved ones around me,” Kait says. “This song is a confession of my own bluest moments.”
The Bowerbird is a native of Australia, New Guinea, and the nearby islands. Its signature move is to piece together elaborate structures based on nearby debris, and then display the artful sculpture while proudly singing as a gesture of courtship.
“I felt deeply vulnerable and afraid that that sadness might be too great for another person to love, or worse, that I might bring out the sadness in the loved ones around me,” Kait says. “This song is a confession of my own bluest moments.”
The Bowerbird is a native of Australia, New Guinea, and the nearby islands. Its signature move is to piece together elaborate structures based on nearby debris, and then display the artful sculpture while proudly singing as a gesture of courtship.
"Rodeo Clown" was recorded at Business District Recording in Johnson City, New York, a space bursting at the seams with a wild assortment of vintage gear and musical instrument curiosities—many of which were used during the sessions. Joining Kait in the studio is producer Hunter Davidsohn (Porches, Frankie Cosmos, Sheer Mag, and Bethlehem Steel), percussionist and co-arranger Spencer McKee, bassist and brass instrumentalist Daniel Thomas, violinist Raina Arnett, guitarist Ryan Sheehan, and drummer Elli Caterisano. Kait’s past releases include the singles “Over Again” and “Good Behavior.” In addition to her musical career, Kait is a theatre practitioner, and has a solo show, "Take it Away, Cheryl," which fittingly takes place in a circus.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://www.kaitwarner.com/
Kait Warner's music is equal parts darkness and light. Inspired by Twin Peaks, ghost stories, love letters, haunted circuses and dark feminine archetypes, she uses hypnotic soundscapes and playful versatility to invite the listener into their own longing, subconscious fantasies, and emotional borderlands. Her innovative vocal arrangements and novel harmonic vocabularies can be attributed to her background as a lifelong choral musician, and it's her love of classical music that elevates her compositions from indie pop to something genre-bending and altogether new. “Warner carefully [weaves] images and tones of darkness and magnificently [makes] them shine" (The Whole Kameese).
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.kaitwarner.com/
Kait Warner's music is equal parts darkness and light. Inspired by Twin Peaks, ghost stories, love letters, haunted circuses and dark feminine archetypes, she uses hypnotic soundscapes and playful versatility to invite the listener into their own longing, subconscious fantasies, and emotional borderlands. Her innovative vocal arrangements and novel harmonic vocabularies can be attributed to her background as a lifelong choral musician, and it's her love of classical music that elevates her compositions from indie pop to something genre-bending and altogether new. “Warner carefully [weaves] images and tones of darkness and magnificently [makes] them shine" (The Whole Kameese).
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