Written on a wurlitzer, the piano on the Grenades title track is the guiding light among mellowed guitar, syrupy bass, humble drums, mood-shifting pedal steel and Kater’s angelic vocals. “Rain heavy like carpet bombs, sweetgrass and lemonade / Fold the memory into your arms and whisper it away,” Kater sings in a tender and devastating foil. During the album’s creation, Kater sat down with her father to talk about his experience as a boy in a war-torn nation. “I wrote it [“Grenades”] after hearing his testimony of the U.S. invasion in 1983 … what that felt like as a child … hearing bombs and chaos,” she says. “I wrote it as this comparison of this beautiful landscape with ultimate terror.”
The record is a journey into scary despairing themes, but hopefully a way out of them also. Thanks to Erin Costelo for producing, Aaron Goldstein for engineering, and of course to all the fantastic musicians (Christine Bougie, Andrew Ryan, Anna Ruddick, Brad Kilpatrick and The O’Pears) for making the album what it is.
From Kaia Kater’s album Grenades (Smithsonian Folkways/acronym Records released on 26th October 2018 .
Kaia Kater – vocals Alyson McNamara – organ Aaron Goldstein – pedal steel Anna Ruddick – electric bass Brad Kilpatrick – drums
The Fat Angel Sings 