Though by her own admission 'What A Relief' is a side-project before she returns to Greatest Band In The World™ MUNA, when Katie Gavin has something to say, you'd better listen. Read our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature.
Words: Neive McCarthy.
Music and dramatics go hand in hand. Every emotion feels like the world caving in, and that melodrama lends itself to the stage — flashing lights, high-octane performances, pounding bass. It's cathartic, and it's euphoric, but it isn't always reflective of life.
The quiet moments, the minutiae of everyday life, often go undocumented in the shadow of gargantuan pop songs about gut-wrenching heartbreaks and wrongdoings. Yet, those pockets of silence and contemplation are just as affecting. Katie Gavin's debut solo album, 'What A Relief', seems to unravel and bask in those familiar, ordinary moments. With her band MUNA, Katie usually specialises in expansive, thrill-chasing pop that revels in those moments of everything crumbling before you. Stepping out solo, she instead pushes a tendency for pensivity to the forefront.
"It feels like two different people, honestly," Katie explains. "It was a function of if a song felt really quotidian, it might've made it harder to work on in my band. The shared quality that made these songs rejects for MUNA actually gave them an identity as a different album."
