Details of the release of her third album, Someday, Now. Out now on Heavenly Recordings. The London & Bristol shows in late May SOLD OUT. The U.K. tour was announced for autumn.
Unquestionably her most confident, assured, and honest album to date, the ten tracks on Someday, Now shine with a brilliant lucidity showcasing Katy’s natural knack for a hook.
Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales and joined by an all-star band made up of Heavenly label-mates Davey Newington (Boy Azooga) and Huw Evans (H Hawkline) alongside Joel Burton, Someday, Now sees Pearson’s signature sound transmuted through the desk of electronic producer Nathan Jenkins, aka Bullion [whose previous credits include Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Howard, Nilüfer Yanya and Avalon Emerson]. Talking about the band, Katy said:
I knew exactly who I wanted to work with, I knew exactly who my session band were going to be, I knew where I wanted to record. It felt like I was finally calling the shots for myself, and that was so empowering.
The track listing of the album is as follows:
1. Those Goodbyes
2. Save Me
3. It’s Mine Now
4. Maybe
5. Grand Final
6. Long Range Driver
7. Constant
8. Someday
9. Siren Song
10. Sky
The album, which is available on CD, standard vinyl and limited edition (U.K. exclusive) marble vinyl, is available HERE
Conceived by Katy, Someday,Now’s cover captures her armed with a heavy sword: a fitting, cherry-on-top visual metaphor for a woman who has “always been shy of taking up space” well and truly finding her power.
Talking about album-opener and first single ‘Those Goodbyes’ — a fully realised pop hit, replete with glitches, big chorus, sparkly synths and a new-found relaxed vocal confidence – Katy said:
It’s funny, I used to feel like I had to go high for people to hear the vulnerability, but actually, singing in your natural range and being relaxed in it — I think there’s something a lot more vulnerable about that.
Indicative of a shift in heart and sound, it fires the starting pistol for an album on which Pearson refuses to kick her heels; running red lights, resisting retrogrades, and exercising her own autonomy — in life, in love, and in the recording studio.
Listen to ‘Those Goodbyes’ HERE
Recent collaborations have seen Katy bend and stretch her versatile voice with the likes of Yard Act, Metronomy, Orlando Weeks and Wet Leg with whom, amongst other friends, she reinterpreted the score of The Wicker Man, in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary and most recently she played two very special shows, both sold out, in London and Bristol, where she previewed songs from Someday, Now. Additionally, she returns to Bristol in November as part of an extensive U.K. / EU tour. The dates are as follows:
25.11.24 – Lido – MARGATE
26.11.24 – Concorde 2 – BRIGHTON
28.11.24 – 1865 – SOUTHAMPTON
29.11.24 – SWX – BRISTOL
30.11.24 – The Foundry – SHEFFIELD
02.12.24 – New Century Hall – MANCHESTER
03.12.24 – St Luke’s – GLASGOW
04.12.24 – Irish Centre – LEEDS
05.12.24 – Castle and Falcon – BIRMINGHAM
05.02.25 – KOKO – LONDON
Tickets for the U.K tour on sale via See Tickets
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Following 2020’s Return and 2022’s Sound of the Morning and a more recent period of burnout, self-enforced exile from music-making, and solo travel, Katy came back to her practice with clarity of mind and vision. “I knew exactly who I wanted to work with, I knew exactly who my session band were going to be, I knew where I wanted to record. It felt like I was finally calling the shots for myself, and that was so empowering”, she reflects. Having shied away from pop music since the souring of an early-career relationship with a major label (“it made me terrified of pop”), Someday, Now features ten glistening tracks which are pop by nature, rather than design or demand. “I’ve found my way back to myself”, she summarises. It is a move both metaphorical and literal: producer Bullion did not push Pearson to sing at the very top of her impressive vocal range and helped her train herself out of an accidental American twang — instead making room for her to sing in her natural accent, cut soft by sandy Gloucestershire limestone.
Where previous Katy J Pearson records were made with a slower, more piecemeal approach, Someday, Now was rigorously written and rehearsed ahead of time, and laid down efficiently over a couple of weeks at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire and this newfound discipline of the recording process can be heard in the music; Bullion’s light but discerning touch honing and distilling Pearson’s songs until they shine. “I feel like Bullion really captured the purity and the essence of how I record myself when I make demos” Katy says. Consequently, Someday, Now shows Katy J Pearson in her truest, most natural state, its songs full of both aesthetic and emotional honesty.
Throughout the record, there is a compelling tension between the smoothness of the electronic production and the texture of an authentic human voice and Someday, Now packs lyrical vulnerability, too — Pearson’s focus turned inwards. You open me up / see I’m not so tough she sings on ‘Save Me’ — laughingly referred to as an “homage to the trauma dump” with echoey Arthur Russell-esque, and later full-on disco, strings.
A wide and interesting palate of inspirations informed the record: Beck, Neneh Cherry, Charlotte Gainsbourg; Kate Bush, Tears For Fears, Arthur Russell. ‘Long Range Driver’, which cuts fuzzy country guitar with uncanny, ultramodern sax across a big old open road, is “kinda Sheryl Crow vibes…that very traditional Americana fiddle [played by Evie Hilyer-Ziegler] with the compressed modern saxophone sounds [provided by Younghusband frontman / Cate Le Bon collaborator Euan Hinshelwood] is such an amalgamation of my tastes.” Amalgamated tastes abound elsewhere too, bending, mixing, and totally disregarding genres: uniting irresistible, syrupy vocals with scratchy, reverby guitar lifts and organs on ‘Grand Final’; climbing piano and wistful laments augmented by Louis Forster’s [The Goon Sax, Expiry] Aussie backing-drawl on ‘Constant’.
Katy J Pearson’s third record, she asserts, “is my best work so far, and I’m not afraid to say that.” As she puts it on album closer ‘Sky’, Not on my knees / Look how I go / I’m an eagle / I am the sky. That yearned-for, dreamed-of someday is, it seems, happening right now.
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Praise for her last album, Sound Of The Morning:
An album that nails introspective songwriting just as seamlessly as it does infectious pop. – 8/10 Uncut
Confirmation that Pearson belongs to a line of transcendent slightly bonkers individualists that stretches from Kate Bush to Ariel Pink – 4/5 The Times
Lilting Americana to tripping pop melodies to heartfelt storytelling folk – 4/5 The Observer
It’s timeless and familiar yet she paints it with influences to create something fresh – 4/5 NME
Watch Katy’s appearance on Later…with Jools Holland HERE
