RnR
8/10
Americana UK
Featured in RnR Magazine, For Folk's Sake, Echoes and Dust, Americana UK, comeherefloyd and American Pancake. Played on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Radio Caroline and Time 107.5 FM.
They say it can take a few albums to really write something of quality, but not with Katie’s debut album ‘Dark Water’. Katie Blount has written an album with the skill of a poet and the heart of a musician. With lines like ‘Fingerprint my mind for evidence’ and ‘I’ve been fooled by the weight of a rolling dice that only ever landed in mid-air’. These songs aren’t lighthearted tunes, but ones that draw you into the heart and soul of who we are underneath our disguises.
‘The American Song’ came from an experience she had in America as she travelled by train for three days straight. Someone she sat next to, told her their whole life story as they headed south. The story was full of casualties from a past they had not yet surrendered. Everyone on the train was trying to escape a hurricane and so a story of freedom and escape from the inside and out was born. Talking about ‘The American Song’ Katie said ‘Even though our stories may be different what we feel is the same.’
Then there are her more unusual melodies that twist and bend into unexpected places, melodies like ‘Dark Water’ that convey how someone sees a relationship ending through someone’s quiet distances. A melody so unique it reminds you of no one and is yet strangely familiar, until comparisons seem futile.
Katie Blount has been described as having that extra thing ‘…Blount has that extra thing that’s needed. There’s a mysteriousness to a lot of her music, a sense that there is a story underneath the story’ – Picky Bastards
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Her artistry is carried through into the videos she made for ‘The American Song’ and ‘Orion Sky’. These have been made from many different free video clips online. She scours the web for just the right imagery that helps to tell the lyrical story. She then slices them together, creating some very compelling and interesting sequences. ‘I really like those music videos where the words and video are held together with each other, rather than at odds with one another. I wanted to create videos that gave the words another dimension….Plus it was a lot of fun ploughing through the web for video clips!’
And if that wasn’t enough Katie Blount has also recorded and produced her album ‘Dark Water’. She built her own home studio and made a vocal booth from an old doctor’s screen she bought on eBay. ‘I tried to keep the production as simple as possible, only adding what the song needed and leaving the rest to breathe.’
‘Never confuse self-pity with artistic inspiration. Katie doesn’t. Pain is a shared currency that unites us. When scars need words, there are songs and poems to articulate them. Dark Water is a mirror of phrases; songs that capture images the way a painting captures the view. Very much a solo album Katie not only writes and sings, but also creates ‘all other sounds’ on the album, from guitar and soft harmonica to drum samples.
She even built the home studio it’s recorded in, incorporating an old doctor’s screen – lifted from eBay – as a vocal booth! And it has all those classic magical singer-songwriter alchemies, with dreams as dark as molasses. Shadowlands was a 1993 movie about C.S Lewis and bereavement; here its also a slow death at the wheel.
‘The American Song’ is strong all the way from Katrina to freedoms that bleed away. There’s a calculated pause that immaculately punctuates ‘Abandoned Love’. ‘Theatre Cafe’ operates on a number of levels – a parental break-up confessional, a short story passed down…or maybe even a fantasy? And on, through stark, transient endings beneath the ‘Orion Sky’.’ – Andrew Darlington RnR
Listen to some tracks from Katie Blount’s Debut Album ‘Dark Water’. Buy or Stream it from all the retailers you know.
I knew it was over
When you gave me a glimpse into your eyes
And nothing was returned
No bridges to cross
From your silence to mine
No rumour of sorrow
From the strangers in your mind
Where do you go
In the daylight of all your fears
Do they sharpen memories
To remind you now
How losing really feels
Or do they foresee
Something in the waters now revealed
So with all the blood rushing to my head
I can’t remember a single word of my surrender
Dark water is coming through coming through
Crawling over my old skin that you once knew
If only we could exchange
A memory into the moment
Then we could bring back the old
And conquer the new
Dark water is coming coming through
Can you see it clear
Though you don’t know the sound
From the distance of regret
If your heart could speak
What language would it use
Would you tell me scenes we played
You were rehearsing your desires
For someone you don’t yet know
Dark water is coming through coming through
Crawling over my old skin that you once knew
If only we could exchange
A memory into the moment
Then we could bring back the old
And conquer the new
Dark water is coming coming through, through
I cannot tell you how I feel
I’m a slow death at the wheel
I’m the no one you won’t claim
Even when the night draws the last remains
I cannot tell you how I ache
Where pain once hurt it now breaks
Or of the distant raging bell
That strikes every hour against my will
I cannot feel your love
I cannot feel your love
I cannot bring you what you deserve
I’ve only got fate left in reserve
Your wild mystery I’d chase away
Trading your pearl for my killer’s aim
I cannot feel your love
I cannot feel your love
I cannot tell you of the dreams
I’ve squandered joyriding on extremes
Grasping the dying hand of desire
With its cold taste of iron wire
I cannot feel your love
I cannot feel your love
There are no more answers
In this story we have made
Where the rogue tongue loosens
And our freedom is staged
The cast who wear the show
Vanish inside their charade
Turn their fear to money
Wear their money as a veil
When you think you know them
They appear as if from a dream
With a face you don’t recognise
Stealing your teeth for jewellery
When there’s no more answers
They’ll revive our misery
Spinning tales of two sides
Each believing they’re the one
God chose to win the fight
While they sell tomorrow
From a second-hand suitcase
Your tears oil their narrow wheels
Like the past hasn’t once paid
Who sees beyond the curtain
Behind the mirror turning wild
Who’s pointing it to Phoney sideshows of numb hearts
When there’s no more answers
You who ask no questions
Inside vague sounds of war
Follow voices raging ’til
You’re worshipping the sword
Those who are sleeping
On the raw tear-stained winds
Awaken to despair Now bleeding inside of them
When there’s no more answers
But those who watch with silent eyes
Behind the scenes of their mind
Those who feel their phantom limb
Sensing each reply
Turn their pain to freedom
In the alchemy of modern times
Misery plays the band
Though you never hear it
Your tears hiding on the run
Your voice fading through the airwaves
A pale ghost inside a fog
Reaching out for someone
But no longer can be traced
Who are you trying to please
The audience has gone home
As if you never were
The show you wore never came from your heart
You tried to tap dance to the blues
Rehearsing in a mirror
That once disfigured you
Lead by what you couldn’t see
As if it had its own will
Oh to make you feel afraid
To persuade you to be possessed by your mirage
While the applause gathered speed
When you believed you’d turned to gold
Their laughter made you bleed
Then I saw a vision appear
You were walking down the aisle
But you gave yourself away
To the story of love you tore out of his eyes
Kissed him ’til your heart turned black
To capture a dream the way
A painting captures the scene
Katrina unwinding carrying her scorn
Fleeing the pain of our own enemy storm
Holding on to freedom as if it were all we could own
Riding that sleeper like a wild horse in flight
Scuffing heals through every crossing we fight
Was then I wondered why your eyes froze open
Caught your mirror of words reflecting back
Someone I could not trust in me
Bleeding me free
Your thoughts spilled over flooding your mind
I heard them escape before escape was denied
Teaching the meaning of shame in your confessions
Your fear was something more than you could make sense
You felt it cut the bone of your splintered defence
As your story lay open ready to be stolen
Caught your mirror of words reflecting back
Someone I could not find in me
Bleeding me free
Saw your father standing with scars in his hands
Showing you his injured love seek revenge
Offering each blow as if they hold some kind of glory
Your mother in the corner her shadow buried alive
Viciously demeaning any rescue she tried
As your cuts reveal loves bitter rage repeating
Caught your mirror of words reflecting back
Someone I could not feel in me
Bleeding me free
Knew where this was going could feel from your lie
Deception promising you were so justified
A fist for a fist, a wound for a wound, the loving love kills
Now I look up see the ice crack your eye
Convincing everyone its tears from your cry
You’re just another boy who thinks he’s
Red-blooded carbon
Caught your mirror of words reflecting back
Someone who was lost in me
Bleeding me free
Your lover’s still waiting for the reason to appear
Lingering on the last moment to come clear
Why you could never say why you were leaving
She thinks she sees your face on the billboard of ninth
Where there was a sale of a lover for a bribe
Did you take the money? Tell me
Did it feel like forgiveness?
Caught your mirror of words reflecting back
Someone I could not love in me
Bleeding me free
Fingerprint my mind for evidence
To try and find the someone you may never see
As if you as if you
Discover me
In the missing traces no one could ever find
Come find me
Lay me down in the lines of your face
Free from any sign you came to stay
Examine all my love for your being there
To understand the reason I have no more words
Somewhere somewhere
You may read me
In the lines of a story on the pages of your lips
I wish I could have someone you want living in my veins
Bleed me into your arms to let go once again
Lay me down in the lines of your face
Free from any sign you came to stay
Go where some have gone to trespass
Know their every movement
In the corners of my heart
Will you will you
Release them
Into cloudy waters of old memories lost
I wish I could hold the time turning in on us
Keep it in our hands to be free again
Lay me down in the lines of your face
Free from any sign you came to stay
Free from your love that could not stay
Down in the old theatre cafe
Our lips stained with wine
Mother on my right
My sister silver lined
We dined among the well to do
I tried to be refined
But I was cornered by her conscience
In her sad refrain
Or maybe I imagined the whole thing
She told us it was over
Pretending that I knew
I still could not see clearly
Through the smoke, the tightropes and the booze
I asked her one starving question
How was your heart undone
She said the dealers always win with their
Sleight of hand honey
They’ll cheat your love for the game
Or maybe you can imagine the whole thing
She said he sings his love songs
To the other girls in town
He charms them with his harmonies
And teaches them to smile and bow
In her words I felt a sorrow
Like a mourning string quartet
Whose forgiveness hasn’t found its way
To freedom yet
Or maybe I imagined the whole thing
I guess every union has a time to expire
Making us cynical by
Revealing loves faithful liar
I used to be a dreamer
Of the sentimental kind
Holding hands under street lights
And dancing on high wires
Or maybe I imagined the whole thing
Conversation ends and then repeats
With you my dearest of brothers
From a side that draws
The very blood from your lips
With a sorrow you never heard
From a doorway you love to call your own
Though I’ve carved my name where you stand
When we pretended with our cowboys in mime
You said the sky had twisted through my head
I was always scrambling upon my feet
Forever in change and laced with seasons
I would only ever be able to play dead
Somehow I just believed you
Now you say I’ve been starved and bled
With a poison so familiar you call a friend
I’ve been fooled by the weight of a rolling dice
That only ever landed in mid-air
Why did you believe it had crashed at their feet
Like an empire exploding to life
I saw monsoon rains behind the waters of your eyes
That if you let go you’d crumble to the floor
From that very same side you argued with me
That it was only me that was blind
Now can you see there are no sides
Just two worlds that need to collide
So come now why can’t you talk about it
Now it’s your scar needing words
When an arrow heading for someone one else’s pain
Suddenly came storming for you
From hands that could not feel to grieve
As your fear declares it’s still immune
I watch you walk away into a breathless fog
The fog you believe I pulled from my mind
I’ve no reason to mystify or throw death a wound
When there’s so many wounds still alive
I just needed you to come stand here with me
To feel the dawn fading through my mind
In the way that I know to stand there with you
When your bird gets thrown from the skies
I heard there’s nothing at the end
Between your last breath and the time I’m left
No day or night no love nor grief
No memories fever there way out of me
Paintings we hung have drawn themselves free
Photographs we captured have found their liberty
Our love once mirrored now has no more reply
Staring back at me your Orion sky
Take me with you when you go
Take me with you when you leave
You ain’t coming back
My voice cannot try to write our song
When even sorrow don’t know how to belong
Please tell our history there’s no more to make
When there ain’t no future that we can awake
Take me with you when you go
Take me with you when you leave
Tell me how can I find you
Although I knew everything needs to end
Somehow I thought forever could try to pretend
Our time nothing more than grains of sand
Your hourglass heart I carried in my hands
Take me with you when you go
Take me with you when Orion
Has called you home, called you home
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