Katie Morey - Friend of a Friend (2022) Hi-Res

A voice that pours with emotion and fills a venue, Katie O'Malley and her hip-swaying Americana band have played across the UK. Hailing from Manchester and proud northerners, they describe their sound as a mix of Americana, Blues & Rock. Their 70's inspired music takes you on a journey of catchy melody to guitar heavy sounds and gravelly throttling vocals, giving an essence of Stevie Nicks brought in to modern day rootsy rock.

Singer/songwriter Katie Morey has been a restless musical wanderer for years, playing everything from bluegrass, to jazz, to punk. Her last project, Pleistocene, released four albums of potent indie punk before calling it quits. This year, Morey has been coming into her own as a singer/songwriter, sharing single from her forthcoming solo debut LP, Friend of a Friend. Today she’s back with her latest release from the record, “Curlique Telephone Wire,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Curlique Telephone Wire” is a swaying nostalgic number, carrying you back into memories of youthful crushes and nervous romance. Morey’s vocals float unmoored above gentle keys, organ, and bright bursts of melody, offering a warm and welcome companion on her tour through the past. Morey’s lyrics trace her past in vivid impressionistic imagery, colored through the rose-tinted haze of memory一“I can still remember / The way I looked from your street’s edge / Clean and shrouded / Tiny gleams of yellow / Speckled violet by sunset’s red / I thought you’d never know, you know / Thought you’d never know / Here we are in our corner of the world.” The track is a perfect Valentine’s Day gem, a tender sun-lit tribute to loves both past and present.

Morey explains of the track, “I wrote ‘Curlique Telephone Wire’ as an homage to having crushes in the ‘90s. I wish I had allowed myself to feel them more freely back then than I did. I was very anti-growing up and as such, suppressed a lot of feelings that adolescents normally have. The love of my life and I were friends for ten years before either of us expressed or even realized our deeper feelings. It almost didn’t even happen at all. This song is about almost never discovering what could be, and how mind-blowing it would have been if we could go back in time and tell ourselves where we’d end up.”