Pool Of Sound - Katy Alex

 

 

Having grown up in the thriving Liverpool music scene, Katy Alex is an artist for the city to be proud of. She was playing shows from the age of just 16, before hitting the stages of Liverpool Pride and Sound City with her unique brand of sparkling pop. In 2015 she was awarded the Merseyrail Sound Station Prize in the final round of the competition, which was held at Moorfields Station where she performed her new track, 'Light', live for the very first time with her band. She beat 100 other emerging Merseyside musicians and nine other finalists to be awarded the top prize. The finalists included Cal Ruddy, Lucy Mayhew, 'The Shipbuilders', Mersey Wylie, 'Gyrus' and 'Mono Sideboards'. 'The Basement Effect', Lewis Maxwell and Rossa Murray also made it to the last stage of the competition. As winner of the Merseyrail Sound Station Prize, Katy was given professional music industry management and recording time for the following year. Three consecutive years with different projects at LIMF (Liverpool International Music Festival), and everything in-between saw her grow in popularity. In 2017, she opened LIMF’s main stage to the likes of Jax Jones and Gorgon City, and one of her most-memorable sets was at the Arts Club Theatre supporting Danish pop-songstress MØ on the Liverpool leg of her 2016 tour.

This singer/songwriter and LIPA student pours her everyday thoughts into spicy pop tunes, exploring the boundaries of this genre. As a proficient musician Katy makes full use of percussion instruments and plays the keyboard and guitar with dexterity. She delivers smooth vocals which are vibrantly energetic; synonymous with youth and yet remarkably mature, possessing a depth of message which is undeniable. Following the release of her demo EP, 'Mixtape 1', followed by a plethora of co-writes and top lines to her name, this exciting artist celebrated her first full release, 'Sucker For Love'. Katy wrote this song quite a few years earlier when she first started using Splice. The song developed around the lyric. "I’ve got a guy at home ringing up my phone" and ended up being a cheeky little love song about the type of lust that literally takes over your mind when you first meet someone new. Katy said, "The great thing about writing pop is being able to take a concept and bend it whilst you’re writing, you might start out writing one thing and finish with something totally different." The track is an impossibly fun showcase of everything that makes Katy such a hot commodity in UK music, featuring a playful and inventive pop sound that feels both intriguingly fresh and effortlessly accessible and catchy, 'Sucker For Love' looked to be the launching off point for a fruitful and engaging project that would have audiences indefinitely hungry for more.

Her earliest memory of songwriting was being on the infants yard in primary school standing near a tree and free styling a song to myself. Katy says, "I swear I had friends, I just liked to be dramatic back then ha,ha. It wasn’t until I picked up a guitar around the age of 13 that I got heavily into songwriting. I’d often stay behind in the music department at school to write at a piano until I’d get kicked out by the caretakers."

 

She signed her first publishing deal with Black Rock/Sentric, after a year of writing and grafting during lockdowns in 2020 and says, " it was awesome to team up with an amazing company and an extra bonus that they’re Liverpool based." Katy’s single ‘Sad Songs” was the perfect lead to her debut EP ‘Glow’. An uplifting tune that reflects the singer’s bouncy personality, she’s discussed the process of healing as having been aided by the songwriting. It outlines the emotional dialectic of "feeling all the familiar emotions of wanting someone, waking up and going to sleep thinking about them, but at the same time being totally aware you still don’t want a relationship". After gaining support from BBC Radio One, Spotify, Line Of Best Fit and many more across only two singles, Katy returned with her first self-produced track, 'Glow'. Being the one woman powerhouse she is, in the face of adversity across 2021, she wrote ‘Glow’ during a drive back from a family holiday whilst her musical career was in turmoil. After finishing the track, a call out was done via BBC Introducing to find a suitable hip hop artist to feature on the song, from that Katy formed a partnership with Kingdom and the song was finished remotely with the mix coming from production partner, Alex Quinn (Michael Aldag, Bandit). Though the outside world could see Katy was beginning to thrive, behind the scenes a long-standing working relationship was falling apart due to outside factors to the detriment of her own songs and plans for the following two years. As Katy has had to do time and again since becoming a musician as a kid, she dusted herself off and turned her pain into power.  Katy rounded off 2021 signing her first record & publishing deal, modelling for Liverpool Football Club, been nominated for a Youth Music Award, was shortlisted for BBC Introducing's Live Lounge, featured on The Anfield Wrap and had support from Spotify, Amazon, Deezer and Apple Music via the track released with D4D4NCE & Piero Pirupa (500K Monthlies).

Katy's single 'Glow'.

She may be an independent artist on an independent label, but Katy has amassed over 250,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone. She is one of the most exciting new voices to emerge from the already burgeoning Liverpool music scene, her co-writes and top lines have already gathered just short of 5 million streams on Spotify and is probably the biggest talent you’ve never heard of. If 2022 is anything to go by and if you haven’t heard of Katy Alex yet, now is your chance. Katy says, "it’s hard to make goals these days when you never know what’s just around the corner. I’m more of a 'go with the flow' kind of gal, and I’m enjoying writing more than I ever have so my plans are to just collaborate as much as I can. If I could reach one million monthly listeners on Spotify or land on a Radio One playlist, that would be huge, a real pinch-me moment."

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/11/pool-of-sound-chemistry-lane.html