Kate Schrock By Matt Peterson


FACE Magazine April 2001 Volume 14, Issue 4

 

In this day and age it seems as though the more you triumph in the music business the more you defeat yourself. With financially motivated major labels looking for the next hit single it's harder than ever for artists to attain freedom within the industry. Nowadays acts are manufactured,
processed, spit out and turned over again at here-today-gone-tomorrow speeds. With dollar-sign-corruption choking the life out of radio and music television, it's inspiring to see the flooring talent of artists such as Maine's own Kate Schrock sticking to the path of the independent and leaving the crookedness of commerce behind.

"If I was approached tomorrow with a deal from a major label, I wouldn't take it," Schrock shared from the South Bristol office of her own Kakelane Music label. "There are so many aspects to the human condition and the human psyche. If we begin to be a society where only this certain portion of being human is looked at, then what are we doing?" There's darkness in all of us and we have to take a look at that - we can't not take a look at that."

Dames Rocket, Schrock's third album, is an 11-track transit of candle light contentment across the clean piano playing expanse that has come to define her work. On Dames Rocket, Kate proves that she is unafraid to confront her emotions, which is why she is able to play through fir unharmed. "I'm a big observer," Schrock said. "I draw from life. I try to capture something, but it's art so it is embellished to some extent."

On Dames Rocket through apple-pie-order arrangements she roams the natural high that she has created as if pursued by a demon. She braves all dangers, runs every risk, fears nothing, absolutely nothing, except the loss of her integrity, which she flawlessly maintains on this spellbinding exhibition. The listener becomes disoriented through a sense of Schrock being passed to her fingers, her fingers to the keys, the keys to the notes; the circulation of her playing slides along and propagates a meticulous universe wherein forms arise fro a split second, only to be engulfed and then to return, overlapping one another, palpitating, penetrating one another as they surge
like the waves.

Kate Schrock's craft is unmatched by any mainstream act that we are fed as consumer's on a daily basis. Artists like Schrock - artists who lead by example and stir tornadoes on records - are few and far between and that is unfortunate. The sincerity of her music is a life preserver to float on in the ocean of temptation that we wake up to every morning. Grad a hold and don't let go.

 

 

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