Everything about “Speak Easy”, from its long gestation period to its dramatic artwork, demonstrate Kaytlyn Cate’s determination not to squander her creative freedom. She has always been a remarkable singer, but the smoky, slightly hoarse warmth of her maturing voice immediately sets the brand new single apart from rivals, and even from her previous single, as she taps into new energies and inspiration. “As an artist the most important thing to me personally is the story I get to tell inside the music. This felt like taking a piece out of my journal that I didn’t want to necessarily share, and release to the world. There was something so powerful about that,” says Kaytlyn. “I felt as if I took every heart ache, whether it was from a friend, a family member, a boyfriend, whoever, I channeled that pain into something beautiful that can hopefully help the people who listen to it. I’ve never felt so closely connected to a song.”
Kaytlyn Cate’s is a fascinating presence in pop music at a time when posturing is as important as craft, because she isn’t selling media savvy, she is an outstanding writer and an intriguing singer. What she shows on “Speak Easy” is a singer-songwriter with a preternatural self-awareness, a deliciously capricious singing voice, and an impeccable ear for melody.
She twists familiar sounds into unfamiliar shapes, while her lyrics flit between dramatic lines of poetry and the conversational breeze of a journal entry. I will admit that I am a little I’m biased because I am absolutely obsessed with what Katlyn puts out there in the world. She doesn’t go by the rules of the typical pop, R&B or Soul song. She’s all about concept building that pushes boundaries.
“You keep talking about all of your feelings. You wanna go, I can’t stop you leaving. But I want you to stay. My heart breaking, cause letting you go is something I’ve needed.” Lyrically painting a picture, Kaytlyn brings it all to life here with a wonderful vocal performance. Her delivery and the lyrics she writes are incredibly genuine.
Whatever Kaytlyn’s singing about, it’s like it just happened. There’s that much emotion and that much sincerity in her voice, and the music that goes along with the vocals is equally good. No matter what’s behind the voice though, space is always used to perfection.
Kaytlyn, and everyone at David Samuel Studios & Soulcraft Records, who worked on the track, did an excellent job of letting every note and every word breathe in this arrangement.
An overwhelming majority of major label Pop stars today have a clear cut path to make their way to the top – one that is paved with formulas and algorithms, to ensure a simple rise to the corporate top. Then there is an independent talent like Kaytlyn Cate, a singer-songwriter who hails from the Cascade Mountain range of the Pacific Northwest. Kaytlyn is constantly working hard at her craft and evolving into a better version of herself on each subsequent release.
Step by step, she is undoubtedly heading towards becoming one of the more intriguing female characters in popular music, and “Speak Easy” most definitely serves to cement that legitimate ambition.
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