DOWN ROUNDER (VINYL)

Canadian indie-folk artist CAT CLYDE has unleashed the heart-rattling new single 'Papa Took My Totems' and accompanying video. Partially inspired by her Indigenous Metis heritage, 'Papa Took My Totems' follows acclaimed early cuts 'I Feel It' and 'Mystic Light', lifted from her brand new studio album Down Rounder, due out February 17 on her own Second Prize Records.

Cat Clyde has established a special link with Australia across her already impressive catalogue, having performed with Paul Kelly in Vancouver, the country being her third highest streaming territory globally, and previous support from triple j and Triple R, among others.

'Papa Took My Totems' sees Clyde reflecting on the ravaging effects of colonialism, the state of the environment, and the patriarchy at large. "There's a lot of sacredness that's being destroyed in the world and that's difficult to deal with sometimes," she explains. "Totems, to me, feel like places and things that are important and real, to witness the destruction of things like that is devastating."

When it came time to record Down Rounder - and after plans to self-produce in the cabin studio she shares with her partner unexpectedly halted due to a mould issue - Cat Clyde immediately sparked with producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney) in Los Angeles' famed Sound City Studios. Together they laid down the entirety of the album in six days flat, striking listeners with an intimate, livewire electricity. Her malleable singing voice and contemplative, poetic lyricism espouse an essential connection between our spiritual centre and the natural world that surrounds us.

"Connecting with the natural environment around me inspired a lot of these songs, and sonically I feel like this record is very grounded as a result," Clyde says while talking about the album's thematic bend, "I wanted these songs to sound raw and rough, but also placed-together in a way that created-a simple beauty, like the changing seasons or a setting sun."

Down Rounder is Clyde's third proper solo album and fifth release overall, joining her debut Ivory Castanets (2017), the spellbinding follow-up Hunters Trance (2019), Good Bones - a set of acoustic reimagining from Hunters Trance (2020) - and joining up with fellow Canadian country singer-songwriter Jeremie Albino for the stellar collaborative album Blue Blue Blue (2021). She's racked up tens of millions of streams across platforms, setting the stage for Down Rounder as her widest-reaching album yet.