💥 two weeks 🌈 bts bts 🦄 vinyl 🔥 listening party💖
in which kath tells a story of one of the songs on MEDICINE (u can listen!) + various logistical updates about the album + pics + I LOVE U!
hi hi hi, you beauties, you long-time subscribers & newbies!
💥🌈🦄💖🔥
FYI, this week’s\month’s Love Blast is all about Kathleenmusic happenings. With MEDICINE, my newest album, coming out in just two weeks, it’s all about the record release. If you’re here more for Freak Flag, the podcast, I love that for you & us (so so much—I really do!), and, heads up, you may want to skip-o-rama this particular blast. It’s all very artist|musician Kathleen around here for the moment! 🦄
💖 okay! you’ve been warned! onto the scheduled programming….! 🌈
Hello my Beloveds -
We are officially at the two-week-out mark until MEDICINE hits the WWW, and I’m popping in to give ya some quick updates!
Per usual, topline here, details below (warning: this topline is not totally in order.)
VINYL UPDATE - Awaiting new test pressings! Pre-order link coming shortly thereafter…
BTS BTS - Behind The Scenes, Behind the Song—A story about one of the songs on the album and a coupla snaps. You can LISTEN to this part instead of read it if u want!
VIRTUAL RELEASE PARTY WEEK OF Oct. 9 - POLL! We are gonna do a virtual release listening party the week of release! Details below, but poll right here—please please please fill it out by Oct. 3 (!) if you think you may want to attend live from the comfort of your own home/device:
okay, love you, love you, looooove you.
TWO WEEKS TIL M E D I C I N E 💥🌈🦄💖🔥 !!!!!!!
more soon.
xo
Kathleen
MEDICINE: VINYL UPDATE
Turns out there were some audio problems on Side B of the test pressings, so vinyl is a little bit delayed from my original target (which was as close to 10.10 as possible).
The plant had to re-cut the record, and I’m awaiting new test pressings, which should hopefully arrive within a week or so—I just found out this morning they shipped!
I anticipate that they’ll be just right this time, at which point I’ll approve, and then have a solid idea of the timing of when we can get vinyl to you.
Once that is settled, I’ll letcha know, and you’ll be able to pre-order!
In the mean time, here are some images of what we can all look forward to for the vinyl (don’t look if you want to be surprised—just scroll really fast):
This is how pink the vinyl itself will be—essentially, bubblegum!
This pink skull by Mason Robison makes an appearance.
VIRTUAL RELEASE PARTY : WEEK OF RELEASE (OCT. 10 - 13 TBA)
If you think you might want to attend the virtual release party, please do the poll at the very top of this missive!
The vibe for the release/listening party is this: My pal Kate Bone of Wonderwell Creative and I are going to hang on Zoom, with YOU, and we’re gonna celebrate MEDICINE & talk about it & listen to some of it! Kaitlin will ask me q’s about the album and the process, we’ll listen to a song or two from the record, chat a lil’ more, etc. If we have time, we’ll open it up for q’s from y’all.
Cozy, celebratory, community, organic.
Ya know—just the way we like it.
BTS | BTS
{Behind the Scenes | Behind the Song}
{to listen to me read/tell this part, with a few snippets of the actual recording (!), check out the audio below!}
YOU ARE THE ONE FOR ME
It is Friday, August 27, 2021, afternoon.
I have just finished watching the first episode of season two of Modern Love on Amazon Prime, the one with Minnie Driver.
I cannot stop crying—it has touched my heart so deeply.
{Have you seen it? Did it ruin you, too?}
I am full of feelings, near to bursting.
The only way I know to handle this much muchness is to sit at the piano, so I do.
A song pours out of me, fully written in 20 minutes.
SB is gone for the evening—down to Albuquerque to the airport to pick up a dear friend who will be staying with us for the weekend.
Outside the windows of our bedroom (where the grand piano lives), the sky darkens to slate gray and thunderclouds roll in. The wind begins its plaintive song, leaves rustle, raindrops gently patter in an abstract percussion—a few now, 20 minutes of no rain, a few more.
I set up my microphones, bring in my laptop, do my best to capture the mood, my heart, this song.
By 9:30 pm, I’ve finished the demo.
*
A week later, I am in LA. I end up in the studio with my buddies Paul and Patrick at Patrick’s studio in the Bedrock building (RIP Bedrock) in Eagle Rock. It is the first time we have been in the studio together, and the first time any of us have been in a studio with others since before pandemic.
After years and years working alone in my studio, and after the isolation of pandemic, being with these two making music feels like I’ve suddenly landed in the cool, quenching ocean after lifetimes marooned in the hot, lonely desert.
It is a balm to my performer songwriter heart to sing, to arrange choral parts on the fly, to daydream this recording into a magical existence with these two pristine, brilliant gentlemen.
Over the next year, we put the recording together bit by bit during the times I’m in LA: a chime here, ambient wind noises there, string parts created by Patrick and recorded live at Erik’s studio, played by Phoebe and Erik.
*
I don’t know if we are supposed to say this, but I will: it is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, and one my favorite recordings I’ve ever gotten to make, too.
To me, everything has a Soul and a Beingness all its own, and I feel extrarordinarily fortunate to have had the privilege of writing & recording this particular song. That it chose to come through me is honestly one of the great privileges of my life.
*
“You Are the One For Me” is the second song on MEDICINE. I can’t wait for you to hear it in two weeks when this record comes out digitally everywhere on October 10th.
.
SONG CREDITS
Produced by me, Paul Redel & Patrick Joseph.
Recorded at Moon King Studios, Speakeasy Sound, The Barn, and Bird Sound LA.
Engineered by Paul Redel, cellos & basses engineered by Erik Kertes.
Phoebe Silva on viola, Erik Kertes on bass and cello. Me on keys, vox.
String parts & programming by Patrick Joseph.
Mixed by Paul Redel.
Mastered by Amy Dragon.
OKAY, ON TO THE PICTAHS, YEA?!
Day 1 in the studio: Sep. 8, 2021
The above is the only snap I have of this lovely first day in the studio. Do you see that mic behind me? It’s a FANTASTIC mic! If I remember correctly, it’s a replica of the Telefunken that Trina and I used when we made LOVE SUPERSTAR a decade (!) ago. Anyhow, great mic, but we ended up not being able to use the lead vocal takes from this day—there was a weird grounding issue, and we could hear a slight buzz in the lead. But that’s okay, because that meant MORE TIME IN THE STUDIO WITH THESE TWO {to record a proper lead}! Which we did, two days later.
Day 2 in the studio: That’s Paul watching me do a take in the vocal booth, very very late on a Friday night, Sep. 10, 2021 at Speakeasy Sound up in Burbank. The photo is by Patrick. We listened to the newest Kacey Musgraves album, I brought bags of vegan bean chips (thanks Kaitlin & Wes!), and we had whiskey to get us through.
Day 3, Studio
UMM DO WE LOVE THOSE LIGHTS ON THE WALL, OR WHAT?! You can thank Kaitlin of Wonderwell Creative for that. This is The Barn, her old studio in West LA. The salmony guitar is Paul’s, the other two are mine (do you remember when I bought that Jag-Stang last year? Did I tell you about that?!). Turns out, lol, we didn’t record any guitar that day, or any other day for this song. This was March 30, 2022. Patrick did string sounds, Paul added Moog. I brought tons of snacks, per usual, and wore my slippers and mostly just sat in the chair eating chocolate and dried mangoes and giving my opinion while Paul and Patrick traded off being in the “producer” chair.
You can see the sides of them in this picture below (photo by Kaitlin).
It seems that’s the only picture I actually have of the three of us, but it captures something essential about our time together.
Beyond that, there were a few more sessions, but, alas, no more pictures.
sharing is caring | the more the merrier | forward this to a pal or two if you think they’ll dig!
I LOVE YOU!
MAKE YOUR ART! (if u wish)
xoxoxoxxoxoxoxo
p.s. www.kathleenmusic.com just got a refresher!
p.s.p.s. this article by Amanda Palmer nailed it on all levels, imho.
p.s.p.s.p.s. this course by Sebene Selassie looks v intriguing, and was recently recommended by Chela. “designed to help you embody the sacred paradox of belonging: we are not separate AND we are not the same,” UM YES PLEASE????!!!!!!
❤️❤️❤️❤️