Though by her own admission ‘What A Relief’ is a side-project before she returns to Greatest Band In The World™ MUNA, when Katie Gavin has something to say, you’d better listen. Read our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature.
Words: Neive McCarthy.
Music and dramatics go hand in hand. Every emotion feels like the world caving in, and that melodrama lends itself to the stage — flashing lights, high-octane performances, pounding bass. It’s cathartic, and it’s euphoric, but it isn’t always reflective of life.
The quiet moments, the minutiae of everyday life, often go undocumented in the shadow of gargantuan pop songs about gut-wrenching heartbreaks and wrongdoings. Yet, those pockets of silence and contemplation are just as affecting. Katie Gavin’s debut solo album, ‘What A Relief’, seems to unravel and bask in those familiar, ordinary moments. With her band MUNA, Katie usually specialises in expansive, thrill-chasing pop that revels in those moments of everything crumbling before you. Stepping out solo, she instead pushes a tendency for pensivity to the forefront.
“It feels like two different people, honestly,” Katie explains. “It was a function of if a song felt really quotidian, it might’ve made it harder to work on in my band. The shared quality that made these songs rejects for MUNA actually gave them an identity as a different album.”
That identity is one deeply connected to Katie’s roots as a songwriter above all else. Those deeply questioning, earnest qualities have always been present in her writing, but against a more stripped-back soundscape, they demand to be heard. It’s an act of reconnection, at it’s core. The songs were written on acoustic guitar, how Katie originally began to write songs, and they favour folk influences and fiddles.
“It was an acceptance and an indulgence of if I still have that impulse to write in that way, that’s also okay,” reflects Katie. “I try to always change the way that I’m writing songs, because you get stuck in ruts. At the same time, it is whatever way I can get something out, it is better to have it out. My impulse was to keep going to the acoustic guitar. I’m not going to stop myself – I’ll just see where it takes me.”
“I often want writers to have answers for me; what to do to change myself and change the world?”
katie gavin
Having the space and time to pursue this project and follow what felt right saw the album fall into place over years of tinkering. Some songs were written years ago, recorded time and time again – it took being able to step away from the project and return with fresh eyes for it to form in the way it has. One of many spinning plates Katie is balancing, it offered a unique kind of freedom.
“This is, at the end of the day, a side project. It’s something that has its own limitations of how big it can get, because I, ultimately, am going back to work on my band’s record, and that’s my main project. Having built-in limitations was very freeing. I’m not thinking about how I can make these stories relatable to the largest amount of people; I’m just thinking about how this is the story that I have to tell today.”
Those stories are starkly laid out and rooted in the kind of worries and thoughts that plague us at random – longing to be perceived and truly known, wondering if you will ever be content, trying to be vulnerable but doing so with an unshakeable hesitancy. Deeply self-aware and reflective, plaintive truths are commonplace on ‘What A Relief’.
“I’m a really voracious reader,” Katie notes. “A lot of times, I read nonfiction books that are about the state of the world and what’s going on. I think there’s a real hunger when I’m reading, where I often want writers to have answers for me, like what to do to change myself and change the world? I often find that writers are actually better at just being really curious about the problem and actually, we don’t have the answers. That’s something I feel is sad about songwriting. It’s beautiful, but it’s ironic. You can write a song that allows some release around sadness or struggling with intimacy, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to be better at it.”
Katie documents these moments without shying away from them, though. She may not have the answers yet, but she is accepting of that and prioritises that honesty and curiousity instead. Opening track ‘I Want It All’ is unapologetic in its yearning for understanding. There is no shame, here. Katie shows her hand with seemingly little reservation.
“Having that space in songwriting has been life-saving for me as a person. I’m not always great at advocating for myself in that way in conversation and in real relationships. To be able to do it in songs does something for me. That’s the thing about releases that is so wild. It reintegrates these parts of yourself that you may have shame around with your community so you see that you’re really not alone in anything.”
“Having that space in songwriting has been life-saving for me as a person”
katie gavin
It is often noted how in releasing a song to the world, it takes on a new life form as listeners project their own interpretations upon it. Lesser acknowledged is the mutual joy and solace in finding solidarity, whether as audience or artist. These feelings might not be fully excised or worked through to the point of a solution, as Katie notes. In owning them and sharing them, though, there is relief to be found – relief at being seen, heard and understood. It is the kind of experience Katie has sought as a listener herself.
“I’ve always been more drawn to stories of people that aren’t cis men,” Katie shares. “Not to be like that, but that is my truth. I really adore and have learned so much from women and genderqueer people, and queer people who have dared to speak about themselves as the subjects of their own life. I just thought that their stories were more interesting and their thoughts were more relatable. Again, it’s that thing about shame; that’s where I went to feel like I wasn’t alone, even if we’re spanning generations.”
Katie has labelled the album ‘Lilith Fair-core’, and it is the ethos of that event that situates itself at the core of ‘What A Relief’. The likes of Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and Tracy Chapman were crucial points of reference for Katie – writers who could meticulously craft sonic worlds uncompromising in their honesty and richly complex. The softer rock tones of the album lend themself to authentic, exploratory storytelling above all else – it is that tradition that is championed here.
“I’ve got to meet so many of those people in the last year, which has been really magical and special,” Katie smiles. “I played a show with Indigo Girls a couple of weeks ago at the Greek, where I played a song with them. We are so similar. Hearing stories about Indigo Girls… particularly the community they really cared about making during Lilith, by connecting with other musicians and encouraging people to play with each other, and see each other as collaborators instead of competition… I find that really inspiring. It’s also important to reiterate in this kind of boom that we’re having right now of queer women in pop music.”
“I really adore and have learned so much from women and genderqueer people”
katie gavin
It feels fitting that when Katie joined Indigo Girls on stage, the song from the album they chose to sing was ‘The Baton’. On first listen, the bluegrass tones of the track seem to deal in mother and daughter bonds – a literal passing of the baton when it comes to generational trauma. However, the performance with Indigo Girls saw the track reflected in a new light. It raises questions of legacy for queer artists, and what comes next. Many artists on the Lilith Fair lineup were openly queer artists, paving the way for bands like MUNA to fly higher in the coming generations. Katie’s performance with Indigo Girls seems a fatedly timed reminder of all the good MUNA have done and continue to do to lay the foundations for another generation of queer artists to thrive.
Crossing paths with the artists who influenced the album so greatly feels in many ways like a nudge from the universe to assure Katie she is on the right path. It’s not the only moment of such, either. From the return to roots approach to writing to a perfectly timed train whistle that signalled the end of closing track, ‘Today’, these moments of serendipity seemed to transpire again and again. A notable example is the video for ‘Casual Drug Use’, which sees Katie assume a co-director role alongside her childhood best friend.
“That was a road trip we already had planned,” Katie recalls. “She was the visual artist in our relationship growing up. It was really special. She’s become a social worker, so doesn’t have as much time and energy to put into visual art, so doing something creative with her was really sweet. It felt very in line with this project and going back to my roots. ‘Aftertaste’ was shot in Chicago, too, which is where I’m from. It all felt very kismet.”
The solo album has been a long time coming for Katie – collecting songs over the years with no true knowledge of where they’d end up. It is clear now that it had to be this project, at this time. ‘What A Relief’ creates a magical, thought-provoking world – a world soft, and gentle, and willing to guide you through each revelation. From bidding goodbye to explosive, intense love in favour of peace, to struggling to open up and be intimate, to candidly, heart-wrenchingly mourning the loss of a beloved pet, Katie traverses it all. It isn’t an expulsion of feeling, like you’d perhaps expect. It’s measured, moored, considered.
“Songwriting has always been my therapy,” muses Katie. “It’s the way I figure out how I’m feeling and process things. But this was also therapeutic in the sense of really having to trust myself, and navigating this whole creative process on my own. Learning that I can do that was its own form of therapy – exposure therapy.”
Katie says herself that she often doesn’t have the answers, like most writers. Yet, that trust in herself proves a crucial factor here. On ‘What A Relief’, there is an innate trusting of her gut to lead her down this path, a trusting of her skill and a trust that somewhere along the way, those answers will be found. It doesn’t matter when, or how – there is a confidence that they will come when the time is right. When they eventually do, then there’s no doubt that it will be a massive relief for Katie Gavin.
Katie Gavin’s album ‘What A Relief’ is out now. Follow Dork Mixtape on Spotify here.
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