Berkeley-based singer songwriter Katsy Pline’s third album Incandescent Fire for Oakland upstart label Take A Turn Records is everything a contemporary alternative country & folk album should be and is. Pline’s ‘60s style fingerstyle guitar on “Guess I’m Always Leaving” and yodeling harmonies give the record a retro country vibe while interesting electronic instrumentation and keys combine to give “Pining” a contemporary take on yesteryear’s style. Pline taps into the melancholy of traditional country and early folk to cast ballads of heartbreak (“Lately Only Teardrops”), loss (“Do You Ever Miss Me” with its beautiful closing duet), and loneliness (“Standing All Alone”).
The record’s opening “It’s Her I See” lulls one immediately into a false sense of security with its sweeping beauty of modern electronics and gritty electric guitar all for Pline’s falsetto to lullingly sweep over for one of the record’s more otherworldly numbers. The album’s title track gives a nods towards ’70s adult contemporary with its lounge-y keyboard treatments and hushed percussion. “I Know That You’ve Already Moved On” is completely heartbreaking lyric-wise as one would imagine yet its instrumentation gives the track a psychedelic buoyancy. Closing with “Lost and Lonesome Too” is perhaps the record’s most accomplished folk track with delicately-picked strings that are comparable to Five Leaves Left (Island Records, 1969) era Nick Drake before the track is led away into the cosmos by a lilting keyboard.
Pline explains of the album’s concept, “Incandescent Fire sets out looking for uncontrollable desire amidst the infinite blues of the present. It narrates this spirit through tales of lost love and existential confusion, the beautiful struggle to affirm life amidst catastrophe and unimaginable exploitation, even when all appears hopeless and lost.” In other words, Incandescent Fire is perhaps the bravest record you will hear all year. As Michael Ramos (Tony Jay) revealed in his recent interview with The Big Takeover, Incandescent Fire is “beautiful music to cry to.” Could not have put it any better.
For more information or to lend an ear, please visit Katsy Pline’s Bandcamp or Take A Turn Records. To engage your social media side, see KPBT Instagram or TATR Instagram
