Soot and Stars
I AM SOOT!
Katie Trotta is one of those artist that you are lucky to stumble across. That is what happened with me when I was stumbling through the back catalog in my Rhapsody subcription service. The song When I Fall is the song I heard!
When I Fall
When I Fall
After this song I was hooked and looked into the album as well as her background. I found that she had her shot at this album at just 19 years of age. That sort of early maturity reminds me of Fiona Apple. In fact, Katie to me is the optimistic Fiona which is IMO a great compliment to any artist. After hearing the track and previewing the whole album I ordered it that night. The c.d. "Release"
is one of those few c.d.s where you can actually feel that, this is a girl with a piano writing about what she sees and feels in her everyday life. If you hear her playing with melodies it's just a girl at a piano playing with a melody and hoping it works in the studio. If she is singing about problems she's doing it in an inquisitive way and isn't projecting venomous hate like pop artist do to get people to relate to their music. What this is to me is a time capsule of a talented artist in the raw and IMO not a note of it is contrived. How often can you feel that from what is essentially a pop artist.
Katie is still putting out music but not on a big scale. What I actually admire is having followed her since (that sounds bad, stalker like even :lol2 is that she is actually attending Berkeley to further hone her craft rather than just settle and try to capitalize on a major label career at any cost. She has a digital album out now called "Demo Sessions" and it has not only the same qualities that I loved before but a maturity that's been influenced by her education. There seems to be a freedom to releasing her music without pressure that she wouldn't have had if her first c.d. took off and if she does become big her repertoire will be a lot bigger than her contemporaries who were shot into the limelight. What I love about Katie is that she's a student but at the same time she doesn't sound to me like an amateur at all. Here are my favorites:
Fighting Gravity
Last Night
When I Go
Ordinary
Find You Again