Katie Kuffel is a Seattle-based musician who operates at the intersection of a variety of genres. Folk, blues, jazz and pop all inform her piano-based sound, though none could be said to claim authority, Kuffel happy to inhabit a nameless region somewhere in the middle. Indeed, it is her soulful, striking vocals that take centre stage, a voice equally adept at smouldering restraint and ardent passion, and one perfect for her poetic songwriting.
Following 2015’s Pearls, Katie Kuffel is back with a brand new full-length album, Take it Up. Despite appearing a solo release, the record is actually a lesson in collaboration, drawing on the talents of Arthur James (guitar), Jonathan Robinson (bass), Jordan Wiegert (drums), Kale Lotton (sax), Lana McMullen and David Kelly (singers/songwriters) to achieve its rich style. The fact is pertinent beyond the musical sound too, the album itself concerned with finding true connection in a world that values the superficial, and using such links as a kind of balm against the pain and suffering one might face. As Kuffel explains:
Take it Up is what came out of the last few years of transition, where I found new ways to connect with myself and my community. How I move through the world as a woman, owning my sexuality, my mental health, and embracing my truth. I’m proud of how authentic this album is, and how I’ve melded different styles, and moods, to create a landscape shaped by my relationship to love, pain, recovery, and connection.
It is fitting then that opener ‘Offering’ is something of a devotional hymn, Kuffel’s vocals and those of the backing singers operating in an almost a cappella style, the negative space of the song adding a near spiritual dimension. As such the vibe is somewhere between adoration, self-assurance and penance, or perhaps all three at once, a sound that comes to represent a sense of sincere belief.
“I’ve got a longer way to go than some
I spare no parts to part the seas that come
Sum me up steep and cup me
I’ve run through hands that tried to love me
I saw the cracks as words and sung each one”
‘Come Home’ is the first example of a more traditionally joyous style, the piano bright and finger clicks infectious, before ‘Arete’ switches up the mood again, a sultry musing driven by piano and deep drums. ‘RCBIF’ is rosier and more considered, the romantic melody building into an insistent drive and finally something of a dazzling crescendo, and the bluesy ‘Canteloupe’ emerges with the mischievous confidence of someone fully inhabiting their own skin.
With their variation and diversity, these first five tracks set the mood of the record—one not interested in classifying itself, with conforming and fitting into neat boxes. Rather, the sound functions in complete opposition to this, Katie Kuffel represented in all of her idiosyncrasy, a persona not mappable into any neat character or temperament for the very reason that it is too fully realised and human. Too alive for boxes and pigeonholes. Too truthful.
‘Vices’ is playfully brash, the self-assured sound at first appearing to belie the confessional lyrics, though soon the mood comes to make perfect sense, a complete ownership of every facet of character, no matter how dysfunctional or revealing. ‘Reinvent Her’ is a brooding slow burn that eventually becomes a blaze, growing with each lick and flicker, while the title track is equally patient yet at the languid end of the spectrum. Here Kuffel’s vocals highlight their ability to rise and fall in natural cadence, the leisurely feel lending an almost improvisational edge, the gradual build into full-bodied emotion having an organic sense of sincerity.
With its breathy vocals and gentle piano, ‘Fault Lines’ is a stripped-back ballad, relatively unadorned saved from the odd lines of skating sax and shuffling percussion. Instead, Kuffel’s vocals provide the sole focus, the patient unfolding of the lyrics building momentum with each cycle, and the eventual payoff is all the more vivid for it. Perhaps the closest thing to a folk song on the record, ‘As the Crow Flies’ is tender and finespun, possessing a kind of natural intricacy within its flow that unfurls as though directly from the heart.
“And I hear you’re supposed to clear
Muddy water by leaving it alone
But I’m the carrion kind
All maw and mind
I always seem to pick things to the boneAnd I’ve been thinking ‘bout the rows
of trees and creosote
What a burden New World fruit has to bear
Anchor me in moving through the silt I buff my roots in
And test all the truth that I hold there.”
Take It Up is an album of complete authenticity. All pretences have been dropped, all half-truths abandoned, every wrinkle of self-doubt examined and ironed out. Such a process requires a great degree of vulnerability, though Kuffel leans into this notion and as a result presents just the opposite. Every quirk and weakness owned and held aloft, and as such form not chinks in the armour but a key component of the Katie Kuffel tapestry, threads that weave into a confident, assured whole, and one that is as beautiful examined up close as it is from a distance.
We’re honoured to be able to share the album in full, so turn your volume up and spend your day with this:
08 Oct w/ Heather Mae, Sarah Clanton and Shaleigh, @ Uncommon Ground Chicago, IL
10 Oct w/ Heather Mae and Sarah Clanton @ 20 Front Street Orion Charter Township, MI
11 Oct w/ Heather Mae and Sarah Clanton @ The Range Ithaca, NY
12 Oct w/ seatbelt and The Benji’s @ News Cafe Pawtucket, RI
14 Oct @ Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 New York, NY
15 Oct @ The Saint Asbury Park, NJ
16 Oct w/ Heather Mae and Sarah Clanton @ Pie Shop Washington, DC
06 Nov @ McMenamins White Eagle Saloon & Hotel Portland, OR
08 Nov @ Bootleg Music Productions’ Tiki Lounge Sacramento, CA
09 Nov @ Neck Of the Woods San Francisco, CA
10 Nov @ The Study Los Angeles, CA
15 Nov w/ DATENITE and Arthur James @ The Tavern Seattle, WA
