Shop Girl EP

Kate’s music can be described like the best and deepest of freshwater lakes; cool and self-replenishing at depth, but warm and sparkling near the surface. She’s done something promising and unique in her latest EP, Shop Girl. Produced and accompanied by Jonathan Rado, along with musicians Sam France, Tim Bernardes, and Alex Heaney, Kate draws influence from Lynsey De Paul and Kate Bush, as well as Ribbons of War, a rock opera by The Extraordinaires, that she’s loved since childhood.

The EP features five songs which Kate refers to as “songs from an imagined musical”. It’s the story of a small boutique, its owner, and the three young women who run the shop. One in particular, called “Bobby,” sings the song “Dear Bobby” in a desperate plea to the boy she loves, who is also called…Bobby. Meanwhile, the shop girls become obsessed with the band Texaco and the very public split between romantically entangled band members, Ian Machine and Sandra Beach.

In the title song, “Shop Girl,” one of the girls describes the mundane tasks of working in a shop with such verve that the ordinary is surreally transformed. “Dreams Don’t Come True,” is the rollicking opening number that sets the tone for what’s to come, with a sound that makes fans of George Martin and Lennon and McCartney, sit up and smile. There’s something in the arrangements of the chords that ring true and bring to mind songs from the late 60’s. It’s not a rehash of that, but rather a lovely re-interpretation of Liverpool and London via Charlottesville, Virginia and Los Angeles, California.