[rating=5]
Kate Doubleday’s latest EP ‘Pied Flycatcher’ is a gentle entwining with nature and its wild beauty. The title track Pied Flycatcher opens with a repeated mantra to fly away home before setting the scenic landscape of falling mist in West Wales where the Pied Flycatcher will fly from to its home in West Africa. The use of kora, played by Dan Wilkins, marks the migratory transition as if calling the small bird on its long journey south.
Kate’s music is both visual and mystical something she is constantly tapping into which is borne of her love for nature. On The Dunes she plays flute as well as reclaimed glass bottles…an apt use as the track is inspired by Ynyslas sand dunes in Wales. The area attracts thousands of people every year. It’s an important wildlife haven and is renowned for the carpet of flowers that transform it in the summer as well as the ancient submerged forest, the remaining tree trunks of which can be seen at low tide. It has inspired many folk tales and the music and sounds reflect not only the mystical quality of the area but also the fact that it is living, growing and changing all the time as the sand dunes grow day by day.
The final track, Freefalling, epitomises Kate’s relationship with nature and her love of the Welsh countryside. As she sings of the buzzard gliding across the sky she makes clever use of a beautiful choral that depicts the bird effortlessly lifting into the sky on thermals.
It’s very clear in all of her songs that she finds comfort and fortitude on the coastline, in the hills and valleys away from the bright lights of the city but to write songs so intimately about nature is not an easy task, to make them sound sincere is even harder. Kate Doubleday is a born natural and carries this all off in style, Pied Flycatcher is a gem of an EP!
Tracks