Katie Gately is making Art with a capital "A" but she's doing it with a deft touch, and a whole lot of genuine heart. A record inspired (as it were) by the recent cancer-caused death of Gately's mother, Loom is stark in spots, but lush in others. The album, out on Friday via Houndstooth, contains music that takes chances, but rarely at the expense of alienating a listener.
"Ritual" and "Waltz" are minimalist, favoring a progression of basic concepts over anything too ornamental. Katie Gately is assured with this material, and even on a number like "Alley", which nearly seems almost conventional, the artist here crafts something immaculate, and something which feels entirely larger than herself in the role as the performer at the center of these selections.
And while Katie Gately has done production for Bjork and Zola Jesus, she brings a more austere quality to her own compositions. The epic "Bracer" transverses an expanse that feels neo-classical, while "Tower" is percussive and precise, the drums punctuating a rather severe presentation. If "Rest" uses choral forms to achieve a sort of relief, the lovely "Flow" imagines the kind of music that Goldfrapp once released redone with the most serious of intentions.
Loom is out on Friday via Houndstooth.
More details on Katie Gately via the official website.
[Photo: Steve Gullick]