Katie Gately albums

2023

Fawn / Brute - 91%

Gately occupies a world that probably best defines the music of our future. The overlapping effects and vocals she uses, all at different volumes and timbers, create their own kind of sound that takes in the attitude and styles of a lot of different genres. The relentless beating of industrial rock, the haunting intensity of gothic rock, the repetitive chanting of minimalism, and the allure of the stories of singer-songwriters. She makes songs that could possibly go on forever, so the ideas launched on each track are probably better described as sketches rather than songs. Tunes such as “Peeve” and “Howl” owe a lot to music that came before it, like the bridging of Tori Amos and Lida Husik trapped inside a video game they can’t get out of.

So many of the tracks are catchy and memorable: “Cleave” hums along with its super languid vocal lines, “Tame” is more about vocal staccato bleeps and blorps than actual words (listen to how the song subtly morphs), and “Brute” is a nightmarish tribute to all the darkness in our nightmares. “Scale” and “Chaw” are special kind of insanity, that takes the leap of the edge of reason and finally loses the relentless rhythm a little bit to point to a different kind of future. On previous works, Gately has been about the processing and changing of her vocals to paint different sounds of colors and here she makes her most successful tie into a rock music background; it sounds like a labor of love and plays like one in the best possible way. Basically Fawn/Brute is an album that is 11 songs that are variations on the same theme. The mix of Kate Bush, Vampire Rodents, and Zola Jesus is a unique one and it all works very well.