Artist Of The Week #225 - Cat Clyde
This week’s Artist of the Week is Canadian indie-folk artist Cat Clyde, who has just released her brand new studio album ‘Down Rounder’ on her own label Second Price Records.
Down Rounder is Clyde’s first proper solo album since 2019’s spellbinding Hunters Trance, but she’s also been plenty busy between now and then. In 2020, she released Good Bones, a set of acoustic reimagining from Hunters Trance as well as her 2017 debut Ivory Castanets; last year, Clyde joined up with fellow Canadian country singer-songwriter Jeremie Albino for the stellar collab LP Blue Blue Blue. She’s also racked up millions of streams across platforms, setting the stage for Down Rounder as her widest-reaching album yet.
She took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Cat - how are you? So your album is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
I’m doing well thank you. Yes! It always feels very exciting to release new music. Making this record was a journey and to not hold on to it any longer and set it free feels very good.
It is called ‘Down Rounder’ - what is the meaning behind that?
I’ve always felt like a rounder. I feel the term encapsulates the lost and searching nature of railroad hobos, cowboys, gold miners, adventurers - a rounder is someone who moves around through natural landscapes looking for answers, to make sense of it all through movement and experience. To find something or some place that could feel like home, to belong to the land and feel a part of something greater. During the making of this record I felt very lost and low and felt the songs were a way for me to explore myself and venture more deeply into my own natural landscape within. I was a down rounder, low down but still a rounder.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
It was recorded at sound city studios in Los Angeles. We recorded it in 6 days backed by an incredible band and producer Tony Berg. There are two tracks which were recorded in Canada - the gloom and I feel it. The Gloom was an interesting challenge and we ended up meshing the version I did in LA with the version I recorded in Canada.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
The key themes are moving through change, and the changing nature of life. My ideas and feelings about love, anxiety, the human experience. I was very influenced by nature and my own evolution as a person.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the album - if so, which one and why?
Probably “as birds fly by the moment too rides on the wind and passes through.” I like that lyric because for me seeing birds fly by is something I consistently see when travelling and touring and moving around. It always fills me with the sense that time is always moving but there is a pattern to it all. It reminds me to be present and grateful to be a part of it.
Now the album is out there - what next?
Touring and sharing all the new songs live. Starting to conceptualize the next project and how I want to move forward with that.
