Cat Clyde is the real deal. The Canadian singer-songwriter, who recently performed at Celtic Connections alongside Bonny Light Horseman, has a wonderful voice for any roots genre she turns her attention to. Her songs are varied, ranging from alt-country to punky and poppy folk to blues-influenced numbers. You soon realise that genre definitions don’t matter and, more importantly, she can just write outstanding songs and perform them equally well. ‘Everywhere I Go’ is a gorgeous song, short, understated and formed perfectly. Beginning with tuneful finger-picking, the song then bursts into rhythmic life with a warm bass driving things along. The listener sways as Clyde finds a sweet melody with her voice, which she appears to deliver so effortlessly. It’s a coming of age song, exploring the idea that, as we grow, we must leave some things behind while holding other things close. The accompanying video follows Clyde in various locations: playing, writing, buying records and travelling through rolling countryside. It looks like she had fun creating it, which transmits to the viewer.
The single is from the brand new album ‘Down Rounder’, released in February 2023. Clyde says of the album’s title and themes: “I’ve always felt like a rounder. I feel the term encapsulates the lost and searching nature of railroad hobos, cowboys, gold miners, adventurers – a rounder is someone who moves around through natural landscapes looking for answers, to make sense of it all through movement and experience. To find something or some place that could feel like home, to belong to the land and feel a part of something greater. During the making of this record I felt very lost and low and felt the songs were a way for me to explore myself and venture more deeply into my own natural landscape within. I was a down rounder, low down but still a rounder.” The album is immediately listenable and likeable, sounding familiar and yet new and fresh. It’s her first solo record since 2019’s ‘Hunters Trance’ but she has been busy since then, releasing ‘Good Bones’, a reimagining of previous material, and collaborating with country singer Jeremie Albino for the 2022 album ‘Blue Blue Blue’. Cat Clyde produces music that is high quality and instantly engaging. Check it out.
