“I felt really good writing the music,” speaks Katie Von Schleicher of gloom-laden lead single ‘Life’s A Lie’ – taken from her self-produced and co-engineered debut that was recorded on Tascan 488 tape-machine in her childhood home. The Brooklynite and Ba Da Bing Records signee is infamous for her own brand of bleak, lo-fi piano balladry – more often than not recorded in a dark room, but here she covers the thick tar in a satin sheet and tries to hide it all away. Wrestling with mediocrity, and the death-like nature of being held within oneself, the hyper-confident track follows Von Schleicher’s 2015 mini-album ‘Bleaksplotation’, and continues her on-going affair with humour and manic-depression.
Toy-machine-tinged opiates float atop sawed-off shotgun drive. Sound and song twist and distort as Von Schleicher laments her loneliness and questions, “where did we go wrong?” Imposter Syndrome permeates the “shitty hit”, but all the while we are presented with sun-drenched bliss – speaking to how our unconscious critique usually sits beneath layers of colourful distraction. ‘Life’s A Lie’ is a joyful, celebratory ode to the unrestrained mess that lies within.
Katie Von Schleicher’s debut album ‘Shitty Hits’ is out July 28th 2017 via Ba Da Bing Records.
KATIE VON SCHLEICHER Facebook | Bandcamp
Music Journalism student and lover of all things sensory and cosmic.
