Cate Kennan – Shadows

Kranky

Amidst slowly but steadily returning touchstone back catalogue platters to print (from the likes of Low and Bowery Electric) and retaining safe spaces for its veterans (such as Pan•American, Grouper and Windy & Carl), Chicago’s venerable Kranky enterprise is also quietly simmering its new signing activities. Hence, having given us the impressive inaugural LP from neo-classical explorer Isabel Pine earlier this year, now comes the first outing on the label from Cate Kennan.

Following on from 2022’s The Arbitrary Dimension Of Dreams debut for Post Present Medium, Shadows finds the California-based artist delivering thirty-three minutes of subtly inventive instrumentals and warmly abstract songs. Loosely assembled in tech terms but not necessarily low in fidelity, the multi-skilled Kennan solitarily forges these ten gathered pieces with varying combinations of keyboards, electronics, strings, guitars and her own reverb-wrapped vocals.

Certainly, parallel creative work in film soundtracks and sound design seeps into the tributaries of this collection, as well as the influence of like-minded solo inner-world terraformers. Consequently, there are moments of gently woozy Freddie Phillips-meets-Radiophonic Workshop bucolic wanderings refracted through an American ambient-minded prism (“The Lone West” and “Rain”), to soothe the senses.

Scattered elsewhere, are welcome bewitching nods to more senior labelmate Liz Harris’s aforesaid Grouper (for the titular track and “So Far Away”); languid luna-lit flashbacks to Apollo-era Brian Eno (“Moonlight” and “Romantic Strings”); and evocative ethereal echoes of Julia Holter’s formative releases (“Devil’s Hour” and “Calling”).

As with other DIY-built constructions of such a diaphanous disposition, Shadows is not one for headphone listening on a noisy commute, but it’s far from being barely-there background music either. Thus, when given the right time and space, its aural landscapes prove to be remarkably absorbing throughout.

-Adrian-