Munroe is the recording moniker of Kathleen Munroe, an actor, filmmaker and songwriter born in Hamilton, ON and now based between Toronto and Los Angeles. After releasing her debut album Oblivion in 2017, introducing her moody folk-inflected pop, Munroe teamed up with Benjamin Schwab (Drugdealer, Golden Daze) to write a series of singles, as well as beginning to work on her second full-length, which she describes as “a collection of platonic dedications in the form of lullabies for friends.”
‘Wreck Havoc’ was the first result of this partnership. Developing threads first visible on Oblivion, the track swaps out the folk influences in favour of something more dreamy. What resulted was a spacious, confessional song, one which unfurled with the subtlest of jazzy undertones as washes of sax drifted across the minimal soundscape, Munroe’s defenceless vocals rising at the centre.
But the second single to come from the collaboration with Schwab, ‘Don’t Rush To Get Old’, reverse this change. Here the folk influences are embraced anew, Munroe settling into the well-worn comfort of country wistfulness in a track that rejects the future in favour of something more honest and pure. For this is a single that urges a renewed engagement with the present, willing you to cease the dreaming and climbing that the future asks of us, if only for a short while. But, this being crafted in the country spirit, there’s an overarching melancholy to the track, as though all the advice and wisdom is delivered with hindsight.
Check out the video directed by Sophie Blumenthal Munroe herself below:
‘Don’t Rush To Be Old’ is out now, and you can find Munroe on Twitter, Instagram and Soundcloud.