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PRESS:
 Katy Gunn Press Shot 1 - B&W, 8 X 10, 300dpi (6.8 MEGS)Katy Vs Evil Bio (Microsoft Word .doc) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "...Each track here is a mini-masterwork...one hell of a first album..." - Justin Kownacki, Splendid Magazine read the review below ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "...multifaceted and rich...audacious and inspired...a pleasure to listen to..." - Anna Maria Stjärnell, Collected Sounds ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "What a great album. I'm talking it stayed in my CD player for a couple of days straight (and since I do a lot of driving during the day, that equals about 8-10 listens). Last night, I was a bachelor, so I worked on the house till o'dark thirty. I brought that puppy in and, again, played it a bunch. The strength of the material holds up with other albums by some old pros...It's like a `Blazing Saddles' movie where you can't catch all the good parts on the first couple of passes. Truthfully, this album is the REAL DEAL. The bass playing...rocks! Ms. Gunn . . . well... it is even more obvious to moi that this girl has `it.' ... If you LOVE music, period . . . BUY THIS ALBUM!" - a very enthusastic fan somewhere near Orlando ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Splendid Magazine reviews Katy vs Evil: by Justin Kownacki I'm usually willing to give self-produced, self-released debuts the benefit of the doubt, but I was completely unprepared for just how much I enjoyed this album. I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, Katy Gunn is a product of the same DIY ethic that inspired Ani DiFranco and Fiona Apple, and those similarities extend to Ms. Gunn's vocals. Her voice is stronger than DiFranco's and less vitriolic than Apple's, but she covers all the same bases, from the seductive croon on "Fool" to the rapid-fire staccato street poetry on "Soul Squeeze". She's multitracked in all the right places for maximum harmony (easy to do when you can already carry a tune), and yet she has the awareness to occasionally subvert her own delivery just to keep things fresh. With personality to spare, Ms. Gunn herself is obviously the selling point of both the band and the disc. Her vocal prowess is impressive enough that even halfway competent backing musicians would have made Volume 1 worth recommending, but Ms. Gunn is fortunate enough to have assembled a highly talented group that apparently doesn't mind submerging itself behind her persona. Jeremy Dalnes (guitars, cello), David Majzlin (bass, programming) and Nigel Sifantus (drums, percussion) may sling their wares in relative obscurity while Katy warbles above them, but they provide her with a fantastic sonic starting point of nuanced strings and trip-hop beats. It also helps that Ms. Gunn is a product of the Oberlin music school, where she was classically trained as a violinist and filled the role of concert master of the Oberlin Conservatory Chamber Orchestra. Apparently the jump to electro-pop rock was inevitable. And I, for one, am grateful. Each track here is a mini-masterwork, deftly layered and cagily structured, veering dangerously close to radio-friendly pop but defiantly maintaining the outsider aesthetic. She juxtaposes sex and innocence via xylophone (?) on "Fool", drags Casio-friendly techno into the '00s on "Delicious" and channels Portishead's Beth Gibbons on the amazing violin-and-bass ballad "How You Love"; I can't help but wonder how big a name Ms. Gunn would already be if she'd crested on the Trip Hop wave a decade ago. But I can't dwell too long, because she follows that number with the time signature-warping "Neil's Universe", which incorporates a cantering jazz piano and a well-placed horn sample. She even makes ingenious use of the accordion-like bandoneon on the saucy brush-off "Tango". It's a hell of a first album, and the best thing about Katy Vs. Evil is that I get the feeling Katy Gunn is just warming up. There's a sense here that she's still actively working to break down musical boundaries rather than having arrived at the next musical plateau. I have no doubt she'll make it there eventually, and whatever news she sends back to us is bound to be stunning. In the meantime, Volume 1 is a wonderful place to start. ### ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MORE PRESS COMING SOON.... |