London-based, Canadian newcomer Cate today releases her debut EP ‘Love, The Madness’ via Believe.
Produced by new Darkroom/Interscope signing Cian Ducrot, the EP marks Cate’s debut proper, following the release last year of single ‘Sad Song’, which scored prominent Spotify play-listing spots and a quarter of a million streams. Written between Los Angeles, Cate’s previous hometown of Vancouver and her new base in Camden,‘Love, The Madness’ snapshots in real time the emotional turbulence of transitioning out of teenage-hood with a relatability that is both raw and uplifting.
‘Love, The Madness’ is now streaming across all platforms from here, with the lyric video for new single ‘4AM’ now streaming from here.
Hailing from Abbotsford, British Columbia – a town on the U.S. border known as the ‘Bible Belt Of BC’ – Cate soon felt the limitations of going against the grain in a community in which married-with-kids-by-25 is for many the established norm. Having grown up in music-obsessed household, a schooling from her Mom in Johnny Cash & Dolly Parton was balanced by stan-dom for the likes of Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morisette and Shania Twain, “All the Canadian Queens!” Cate laughs. By her late teenage years, she was feeling burnt by the fall-out of leaving the country-influenced band she’d been fronting – and touring around Canada – through high school. Encouraged by ‘why not?’ parents – who themselves drove across Canada to relocate to the West Coast fromNewfoundland – Cate cut ties to relocate to Vancouver straight out of high school.
Drives across the West Coast border to Los Angeles for writing projects soon became as frequent as cash would allow, Cate making a serendipitous connection with artist Cian Ducrot at a writing camp. Finishing their first co-write within an hour of meeting, Ducrot went onto to long-distance produce ‘Love, The Madness’ between his London bedroom and Cate’s Vancouver digs. With visa issues nixing Cate’s planned longterm move to L.A., an impulsive Plan B instead brought her and Ducrot – joined by fellow songwriter Tessa Mouzourakis – together in a no-frills shared flat in North London; “My bedroom is the living room-cum-recording-room” Cate laughs, “It’s awesome!”. The shimmering ‘Pity Party’ – the first track she wrote in London – documents this bumpy transition with both unvarnished honesty (sampling snippets from Cate’s phone calls back home to her Mom) and a deceptively hooky quality.
This kind of freewheeling, ‘f•#k it’ resilience fizzes across the ‘Love, The Madness’ EP. It’s a coming-of-age collection that documents the fall-out of glimpsing a predictable future you’re scared by, upending everything to outrun it and, as Cate dryly notes, with understatement, “All the stuff with boys”. Cate’s intuitive song-writing flips between the rising realisation you’re no good for someone (‘Heavyweight’, which subverts its title with ease) and the pursuit of emotional detachment (‘All Talk’), to the audit of a messy night out, detailed with zero regrets (‘Funny Story’). Elsewhere, the longing for a person you can’t have sits centre of ‘4AM’, Cate’s stunning vocals weighing the damage of pursuing something that’s going nowhere, over a head-rush of a chorus.
‘Love, The Madness’ might be the culmination of 12 chaotic months spent, in so many ways, winging it – but it brims with an unmistakeable focus and facility that you suspect won’t keep Cate consigned to the sofa in the living room for much longer.
Love, The Madness EP Track-listing
Pity Party
All Talk
4AM
Heavyweight
Funny Story
If I Need To
