Thanks to the inexplicable popularity of my Submit Music page, I always have a digital backlog of albums, EPs, singles and videos awaiting my perusal. Here’s another recent must-hear, along with the Bandcamp link so you can buy the music straight from the source. Tell ’em I sent ya. And if you’ve got something I need to hear, send it my way. If I think you’re half as good as you think you are, I just might include you next time.
Cat And The Queen
I Caught A Fish
THE EDITED BIO & PRESS RELEASE: “Cat and The Queen (CATQ) is the name that embodies both Cat Montgomery, Toronto singer-songwriter, and her beloved keyboard whom she adoringly calls The Queen. Playing piano from a very young age, CATQ combines her musical skill with her work as a theatre artist to make each song she creates a raw and visceral experience. Three albums later, and many electrifying stage shows under her belt, Cat and The Queen is a musical and theatrical outfit that serves as an outlet to create and perform, in motion, stories of the heart.
Always theatrical and in the moment, Cat has a raw performance style that is unique and exciting. Her songs do not settle into any one genre, but they have been described as indie-rock power-pop dark cabaret moody heart ballads. Think Tori Amos meets Jefferson Airplane meets B-52’s meets early Bette Midler meets Kate Bush meets your goddamn imagination on overdrive. CATQ is her own sweet beast, never branded, ever evolving, all heart. Her energy is not lost on her recordings.
This summer in the thick of COVID, Cat was lucky enough to hide herself away, solo town, in the woods of Ontario to work on her third album I Caught A Fish. Says Cat: “This album wasn’t premeditated or planned. It was created more out of necessity — a need to create music in order to process upheaval, instability, changes and future unknowns (and we all know what we’re talking abouttttt ie. global pandemic much?) Anywho, I think of this album as a photo album full of snapshots taken from a specific time, a specific place. Snapshots include navigation of loneliness / grasping in isolation / impact of BLM / delusion of memory / relationship and heartbreak / pleasure in self exploration / a call for community and action … This album doesn’t have a conscious coherent sonic theme to it, but each song is indeed a snapshot photo in an album documenting my 2020 spring/summer experience — raw, simple, low-production, heart.”
MY TWO CENTS: Sharp, sophisticated, brilliant and beguiling — a chronicle of societal turbulence and personal upheaval that delivers substance with singular style.
