Kat Bryan is a Canadian singer-songwriter and producer. She was raised in folk festivals and choirs around British Columbia and spent her late teens creating a folk sound, though, in recent years, she has shifted her focus towards electronic music production.

June sees Kat Bryan release Circus of the Living, her debut release for AnalogueTrash. The track comes in advance of a new album due for release later this year.

Inspired by innovative artists like Nils Frahm, Sigur Rós, and Imogen Heap, Kat Bryan blends warm and soulful roots found in a love of classic jazz with vibrant and lush electronic instrumentation, allowing her to effortlessly skirt the edges of both the electronica and pop genres.

Production had become a focus for Kat during the early days of the pandemic when like many, the daily work routine changed suddenly and dramatically. It was also a process that saw Kat develop her previously folk-oriented sound into something more akin to soulful electronica with a subtle gothic flavour.

Talking about the writing process behind Circus of the Living, she discloses, “The entire song is built around that initial tape warp synth effect heard in the intro. It runs through the whole song creating a sense of foreboding. I was obsessed from the minute I heard it and the song emerged really quickly.

“The bass is literally the crunchiest, most distorted, nastiest sounding bass plug-in I could find. This was another element that I wanted to be huge and heavy and dark. That bass together with the whiny horn sound in the chorus really creates an atmosphere of things being not quite right.

“The backing vocals were essential and representative of what I affectionately call my ‘ghost choir.’ Throughout my songs I keep going back to this chorus of haunted harmonies, as if my backup singers are all spirits from another realm who just wanted to hang out with me for a bit. I am a bit of a goth at heart, so I like things that are full of ghosts.”

The lyrics come from a very personal place, however. Kat elaborates, “I wrote the lyrics based on the mood of that tape warp and it is quite literally about the very strange days we are living in, and how we're all just accepting that this is what we're doing now and ignoring how strange it really all is. It’s what humans do to survive, but in that moment, I was just aware of how bizarre it all was.

“The first draft of Circus of the Living was written in the early summer months of 2021. It had been long enough into the pandemic that it was all starting to feel normal, but short enough to remember that there was a time when mass vaccinations, showing ID to eat in restaurants, and wearing a face mask still wasn't standard behaviour.”

The digital single also features an exclusive remix by legendary producer David Harrow. David is known for his work with the likes of Anne Clark, Andrew Weatherall, and Lee “Scratch” Perry, alongside his solo output as Technova, James Hardway, Magnetic, and under his own name.