Inspired by one of her Mother’s favourite artists, Leonard Cohen; Katie Gately‘s new track ‘Waltz’ is a haunting, powerful call to arms encouraging listeners to dance, even in the midst of overwhelming grief.
The track is lifted from Gately’s upcoming album Loom, which is set for release via Houndstooth on 14th February. The record is dedicated to Gately’s Mother, who passed away in 2018 due to a sudden onset of a particularly aggressive form of cancer. The electronic musician & producer has channelled her grief into these new songs, and ‘Waltz’ is one example of how transformative this can be.
After listening to Leonard Cohen’s track ‘Take This Waltz’ on repeat for an entire day, Gately was inspired to write ‘Waltz’. The accompanying video directed by Samantha Shay was shot at an abandoned Catholic convent, and features modern dancer Bobbi Jene Smith opposite Gately, who appears in her own video for the very first time.
“When you see me, I am already gone” muses Gately at the beginning of the track, as Jene Smith performs her primal, urgent, crooked choreography around the stark walls of the convent. Speaking about the track, and the accompanying visuals, Gately explains further: “When I listen, I see images that correlate to a zebra on a bad LSD trip. But I feel that its absurdity honours the chaos of losing someone you love more than time, space or measure. And so perhaps my message is: it’s okay to feel like a drunk zebra when your heart is breaking. Or, to quote the far greater poet Leonard Cohen: “When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That’s about all you can do.””
Gately’s admirable outlook and bravery in writing and recording the video for ‘Waltz’ didn’t go unnoticed by Director Samantha Shay. “When I work with a musician, there is a wide spectrum to feelings about being filmed or photographed, and Katie expressed that she didn’t feel comfortable on camera,” she explains. “The day of the shoot, I asked Katie if she wanted to be challenged as a performer or not, and she practically demanded it of me. What resulted was absolutely magnetic. She wilfully and bravely let her walls collapse in front of us, and this video, to me, is a powerful portrait of her.”
And what a beguiling, intense portrait it is. Watch the video for ‘Waltz’ below and follow Katie Gately on Facebook & Spotify for more updates.
Katie Gately UK Live Dates 2020
April 1st – London’s Cafe Oto
Photo Credit: Steve Gullick
Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut
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