Review: Katie Herzig and The Waking Sleep

I met Katie Herzig years ago before I'd heard her music. She was a critics favorite, floating around Nashville but like so many musicians floating around Nashville she was, for me, lost in a sea of names and talent. We met at a retreat and like everybody who meets Katie I had my crush (Supposedlyit's a right of passage in Nashville) and yet what came out of that for me was a sincere appreciation for her music. She's since become a friend but honestly I consider myself more a fan, still.

It's arguable, but I think you could make a case for Katie being one of the greatest singer/songwriters alive. Occasionally she attempts a pop feel and while it works and works better than most other artists doing pop those songs often strike me as less than what she's capable of as an artist, as though she's torn between doing her music and doing music that she knows will land with a larger group of fans. These songs (though not sonically) remind me of that old Blues Traveler song "Hook" in which John Popper wrote a song with an incredible hook that rose to and stayed at the top of the charts for months, but upon listening closely you realize he's making fun of the listener, saying all you really care about is this "hook" and you don't even realize I'm making fun of you.

Katie isn't making fun of anybody with her pop stuff, though. She means it, I believe. Songs like "Free my Mind" remind me of her song "Hallogram" in which she seems to be singing about the complications of games within relationships. Who doesn't understand that and who doesn't mean it when they talk about it? And yet for me Katie seems smarter than those kinds of conversations. You'll love those songs, as do I, but when you hear the other stuff you realize she's an artist set apart.

Her genius, and I do mean genius, is when her music goes into your subconscious and pulls something from deeper in the well, a bunch of stuff you didn't know was in you. Track two, "Make a Noise", which talks about being born before the war, hails back to a desire for peace theologians might call Eden or psychologists think of as womb thinking, or Joseph Campbell might dismiss as metaphor that has given birth to a thousand myths. Regardless, we all get it and we all want it and it's nice to not feel alone in the longing. Katie's best music has this quality, the quality that lets you know you're not alone.

With "Way to the Future" Katie stays just above or beyond or "better than" pop. It's not as in your face as Feist and so you don't get tired of it as quick. And it's lovely and slightly seductive in a harmless kind of teasing which is what good pop music does. "Best Day of Your Life" may be the catchiest song on the new record and manages a hopeful call to appreciate all you've been given and all you get to do.

Where Katie steps toward genius is  with songs like "Wasting Time" where she plays with pop. Once again a song about relationships, she talks about how "it's easier wasting time than breaking hearts you love" in which seems to sing somewhat happily, yet reflectively, about how frustrating it is to be wanted and yet not really want back. It's a kind of playful yet truly humble "I'm sorry." Or at least that's how I heard it, and perhaps half the guys in Nashville heard it this way too.

Where Katie moves fully into genius is with two songs, the first of which is the title track "The Waking Sleep." It's made for movie stuff, lots of ethereal sound  producer Cason Cooley floats beneath her as she sings about rising again.

In my opinion, the song where Katie transcends is with "Lost and Found." Cason floats more sound beneath her, but a beat moves it forward and a subtle build in the chorus makes the song an anthem. She sings of every war being another seed that could feed every soul in need and the song seems to pine for something other than what we know and hopes for something more, something beyond.

This song, especially, hit me hard. I don't even know why. I think at least twice I'd had a couple beers and texted Katie thanking her for the song. She was always kind enough to text a "thank you" back.

Not all the music on The Waking Sleep makes sense to me, but neither does the moon. I think this album will be like that for all of us. We will listen to it a hundred times and love it, then find it again a year from now or two years from now and remember it the way we see the moon and wonder if maybe there's more out there than what we know, and hope whatever it is that is out there good. What more could we ask for from an artist than to make a moon.

Review: Katie Herzig and The Waking Sleep is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog