Kat Dahlia Preps For Debut LP With Crowd-Pleasing LA Showcase

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Los Angeles – While at this very moment Kat Dahlia may not be at the top of the mainstream consciousness, her time out of the spotlight is waning incredibly thin. The genre-hopping singer-songwriter is prepared to release her debut studio album, My Garden, which will be available January 13 on Epic Records imprint Vested in Culture.  With her eclectic and electrifying set on Thursday night, the Miami-based Dahlia gave the crowd at Silver Lake’s Club Los Globos something to dance about.  Dahlia performed with passion and power, an especially impressive feat considering how long she has been on the road in support of these songs.

Dahlia has emphasized that the tracks on My Garden are intended to explore a wide range of styles and moods, and her live set showcases this eclecticism.  She certainly got a lot of help from her band, which featured the standard guitar/bass/drums set-up. The three-piece ensemble provided great depth and nuance to each of the numbers in Dahlia’s set, performing with the tightness and cohesion typically reserved for more long-running groups.  While a lesser vocalist may have been intimidated or drowned out by the powerful performance behind her, Dahlia would have none of that: her rich vocals consistently stood out as the most prominent aspect of each song.

The band kicked off the set by taking the stage minus Dahlia, immediately jumping into the instrumental track of their first song.  With the drummer pounding away and the guitarist ripping out a distorted riff, the anticipation in the room grew greater and greater.  With each passing moment the audience could feel that Dahlia was just seconds from exploding out from the backstage area.  And burst out onto the stage she did, mid-verse, immediately showcasing her well-honed vocal prowess and experience-driven lyricism.

While My Garden represents Dahlia’s first full-length album, she has received a ton of buzz and accolades for her first two singles, “Gangsta” and “Crazy.”  It did not take long for audience members to get a live taste of the first of these singles, “Gangsta.”  The band ripped into the propulsive track, led by Dahlia’s hard-hitting lyricism and vocal work.  While the crowd danced along with the opening song, the energy at Club Los Globos was taken up a notch with this second song – even the bartenders in the back of the venue could not help but shake and shimmy to the groove.

While this energy was sustained throughout the set, there were two other tracks in particular that really got the audience going.  The first, “Mirror,” is one of the catchiest tracks off My Garden and was co-written with one of her band members.  Dahlia introduced “Mirror” as a love song to everyone in the world, highlighting the fact that despite all of our differences we still have so much in common.  Once again the crowd took their excitement to the next level, singing along to each of the myriad radio-ready singles contained in the verses and choruses of the song.  The other highlight, “Clocks,” brought the intensity to the next level as the audience crowded the stage, singing “We gon’ turn it up don’t tell your mama!” along with Dahlia.

Despite writing songs and performing since the tender age of 15, Dahlia appears ready to burst into the national conversation of powerful female singer-songwriters.  Dahlia offered up an impressively deep set with solid track after solid track, something that is not always the case with “buzz” bands or musicians. 

Kat Dahlia has finished her 2014 touring schedule and will take a break before the release of her debut album.  Check her site for 2015 tour dates following the release of My Garden.
Matt Matasci

Matt Matasci

Perhaps it was years of listening to the eclectic and eccentric programming of KPIG-FM with his dad while growing up on the Central Coast of California, but Matt Matasci has always rebuffed mainstream music while seeking unique and under-the-radar artists.Like so many other Californian teenagers in the 90s and 00s, he first started exploring the alternative music world through Fat Wreck Chords skate-punk.This simplistic preference eventually matured into a more diverse range of tastes - from the spastic SST punk of Minutemen to the somber folk-tales of Damien Jurado, and even pulverizing hardcore from bands like Converge.He graduated from California Lutheran University with a BA in journalism.Matt enjoys spending his free time getting angry at the Carolina Panthers, digging through the dollar bin at Amoeba, and taking his baby daughter to see the Allah-Lahs at the Santa Monica Pier.
Matt Matasci