{"id":32212,"date":"2020-04-08T14:25:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T18:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=32212"},"modified":"2020-04-08T14:25:59","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T18:25:59","slug":"playing-the-bay-katsy-pline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-the-bay-katsy-pline\/","title":{"rendered":"Katsy Pline&#8217;s In This Time of Dying Reflects Our Bizarre Reality With a Folky Spin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32218\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10.jpg\" alt=\"Katsy Pline playing the bay\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-324x216.jpg 324w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-416x277.jpg 416w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10-700x466.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/katsypline.bandcamp.com\/releases\">Katsy Pline<\/a> has made a folk album for the apocalypse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Or, more accurately, a folk-rock-syth album for the apocalypse, like Pline was watching fiery destruction from on high, fingers smashing the keys of an electric piano while warbling over a lost love. If you want another song to add to your apocalypse playlist (I know you have one, whether it be on Spotify, Soundcloud, or scribbled inside the journal you started on day six) look no further than the closing song on Pline\u2019s new LP, <i>In This Time of Dying.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The album was released on March 15th, so no worries, dear reader \u2014Pline may not so much be prophetic as much as intuitive, perhaps the marker of any good folk singer. Don&#8217;t they always seem to have a backlog of completed albums for every chapter of your life, like your own personal Greek Chorus?<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: In This Time of Dying\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/28CiaRMN3SJLVngxNq5RsX?si=AAQ4VK2GTZeXxfT7O_ZoOw&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\n<p class=\"p1\">It&#8217;s appropriate, then, that album closer \u201cHow Long Must This Go On\u201d actually has one, or something like it. In many ways, it&#8217;s the most old school song on the LP, but even the most spaced-out listener couldn\u2019t miss its anachronistic opening line: \u201cWoke up this morning\/was all alone\/rolled on over\/and I checked my phone\/well I\u2019m wonderin\u2019\/how long must this go on.\u201d The almost nastily relevant lyrics are proceeded by far-flung whistles and claps, ghosts of the crowds we find ourselves missing, if not double ghosts of some late-&#8217;60s summer music showcase it would be easy to imagine Katsy Pline dropping into via wormhole, without anyone giving a second glance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The album has sprinklings of many old favorites, from the OG British Invasion boybands to Gene Clark, but with a distinct penchant for synth and distortion that can only be attributed to Kline\u2019s past musical iteration as one-third of Bourgeoisie Speedball, a experimental group who would \u201c[render] movement sonorous\u201d by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eastbayexpress.com\/oakland\/bourgeois-speedball-loves-the-sound-of-breaking-glass\/Content?oid=4330650\">transforming sounds of Bay Area protests<\/a> into strange tidbits of tracks.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=321160621\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bourgeoisspeedball.bandcamp.com\/album\/red-threads-2\">Red Threads by Bourgeois Speedball<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWipe the Years,\u201d another standout track, leans into doo-wop with its backing chorus of <i>ahhs<\/i>, but most strongly reminded me of one of my all-time &#8217;60s favorites, Herman\u2019s Hermits. As Pline pleads for someone to \u201cplease wipe these [memories] from my mind,\u201d the little distorting affect on \u201cplease\u201d<i> <\/i>and record-scratch repeats recall Peter Noone\u2019s lovelorn vocals at the end of Hermits classic \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/1bas9EMFNPwEolxIMMRWWH?si=PrSmkk-jSgK7D7kKSf5IYw\">No Milk Today<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Pline was deliberate with this LP \u2014 despite the utter timeliness of the album\u2019s sentiments, the arrangements (including any non-diagetic sounds) are carefully-considered vintage, like Pline runs a sonic period store stacked with white peasant tops and a rust-colored a-line skirts nestled carefully alongside slashes of &#8217;80s braggadocio \u2014 there\u2019s a lighting-stripe vest! There\u2019s a satin belt!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But like I said \u2014 carefully. Pline may be a veteran of discordance, but the dashes of electronic affects and synths never feel tacked on or musically arrogant (<i>you\u2019ll listen and you\u2019ll like it!<\/i>).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Instead, they feel like what would have been a natural progression for the folk bands of the &#8217;60s and &#8217;70s if such effects had been more widely used and respected. Some may argue that no folk-rock band of old would touch a modern synth with a ten-foot pole, but what truly is more off-the-beaten-path than the ability to distort your voice to reflect the cacophony of your own feelings?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The only time this strategy loses effectiveness is on \u201cShe Was a Friend of Mine,\u201d a true folk lament about the death of a fringes-of-society person in Pline\u2019s life. Pline\u2019s voice is strong enough to stand alone, here or otherwise, and in such an otherwise stripped-down arrangement, the electronic aspects end up being a distraction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cCrying in the Sun\u201d brings the album back to full force, not only because of yet another crystal-ball lyric (\u201cmask upon my face and eyes\/algae blooms and fish rots seaside\u201d), but because of utter atmosphere. The sun has always been its own character in folk and rock as much as \u201cthis town\u201d is to pop-punk. This song posits it as some last bastion of the softest and gentlest aspect of society, a final pat on the cheek as Pline asks \u201cWill I ever leave this place\/or will I always be crying in the sun?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Take it, at least for now, as less of a depressing mandate and more like a piece of advice: go outside, feel the sun on your face. Just stay in your own backyard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katsy Pline has made a folk album for the apocalypse. Or, more accurately, a folk-rock-syth album for the apocalypse, like Pline was watching fiery destruction from on high, fingers smashing the keys of an electric piano while warbling over a lost love. If you want another song to add to your apocalypse playlist (I know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":32218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7851],"tags":[988,9994,4108],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0018967951_10.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32212"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32292,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212\/revisions\/32292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}