A stunning achievement, with Loom Gately beautifully honors her mother as well as her commitment to uncompromising music.
Loom is an intense record, full of feelings of loss, confusion and angst. It’s also an early contender for best electronic album of the year.
A swirling mix of eerie atmosphere, devastating emotion and brilliant sonic abstraction. It is Gately's best work yet.
It’s a scattered archive of loss in a shattered life, full of memories misplaced or mislabeled, threaded together in an attempt at patchwork remembrance.
The collection sounds like a deep dive into the ominous shuffling of Color’s outlier titular track, an ideal musical direction given the subject matter.
On her second album, the L.A. musician grapples with the death of her mother, placing her playfully experimental approach to sampling and sound design in the service of a more meaningful vision.
She is firmly in her own mesmerising world, informed by a sonic sensibility unlike pretty much anyone else.
It is a stupendously big and loud record.
As the title suggests, something truly seems to be looming over you as you experience this collage of glitchy and harrowing sounds. Katie Gately crafts a centerpiece of suffering across Loom, as the echoed and whispered vocals wash over you along with the intense and gloomy sonic background. Tracks like Allay will haunt with their massive sound while tracks like Waltz will have a similar effect while shifting the pace to (you guessed it) a 3/4 time signature. Regardless of pace, the theme of ... read more
Terrifying, Loom is one of this week's must-have releases, as it delivers immeasurable emotion. In addition to being a musically marvellous work of pop art (reminiscent of the Magdalene I was so fond of last year), with stratospheric orchestration combined with particularly meticulous electronic music, Katie Gately's indomitable voice stages her own life, expressing her painful feelings and especially this cruel situation of the tragic loss of her mother.
Both the construction of the album ... read more
An oppressive, dark and creepy album that gave me shivers. Released earlier this year, it's not quite at the level I would consider a contender for AOTY. However, it's quite an impressive listen. I especially like the way Katie uses ghost-Katies as a spectral choir to enhance the creepy atmosphere. There's also a definite pulling from her personal experiences present here. Gately lost her mother, and it bleeds through into this album's soul; mournful, almost. Sonically it's very creative, using ... read more
This is handily one of the darkest albums I have ever listened to. It takes all of Katie's signature sounds and beats and puts them in both such a mournful but also deeply angsty in a malicious way. The beats are absolutely POUNDING through your soul. It's my least favourite record of hers so far between the 3 that are out but god damn it is still insanely good.
TOP 3 SONGS: Bracer, Tower, Allay
Jaw dropping production but it just feels a little... lacking. It needs more of an emotional flair during its intense moments. It doesn't resonate as much as the production suggests it should.
US Electronic musician and producer Katie Gately’s Loom is drawn from the traumatic experience of watching her mother slowly succumb to a long illness drawn from a rare form of cancer. Those feelings and observations have largely translated into the lyrics and music of this sublime sophomore record. Loom is a subtle, powerful and cathartic record that is heavy both in sound design and sheer emotion. ‘Waltz’ is an emotional rollercoaster with both unintelligible reverb heavy ... read more
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