Review by Heather Corcoran, CoffeeHouseTour, March 2005

It’s a rare occasion when an artist can loosen up the strings on ordinary folk music but pull together tight an array of songs that cover almost every emotion known. Kate Peterson has done exactly that! If you’re looking for 100% pure extraordinary folk music, you found it! She carries her husky yet soulful voice through this heartfelt, mellow CD. Her music lunges at you with a powerful force, knocking you to the ground in awe of this artist. She’s strong, independent and finds life needs nothing else then the comfort of her friends over a cup of coffee and some good conversation. Kate uses a sprinkle of magnificent poetic measures throughout her songs, so deep in detail, you can feel the colored picture she is describing in her words. With smart lyrics against fast paced guitar, there is no other way to describe this CD then “folking fantastic!”

 

CD review: 'Undone' by Kate Peterson
Album is an intriguing effort

By Chris Rietz
Lansing State Journal

Kate Peterson's "Undone," released earlier this year, is an independent release in the fullest sense: it's 45-plus minutes of original songs, issued on her own label, and - as she's a graphic artist as well - she designed the sharp-looking package.

Peterson's voice has occasionally been described as "gravelly" - repeating singer/activist Alix Olsen's remark - but it's nothing of the kind. It is direct, understated, refreshingly free of mannerisms, and it radiates an intimate warmth. Her riff-driven guitar style is a model for self-accompaniment, too.

It's these qualities that make Kate Peterson one of our area's more intriguing young talents. Where "Undone" sometimes stumbles, however, is in its songcraft. The studied lack of artifice, in the best confessional songwriting, can have straight-to-the-heart impact - and while there are many such moments here, often it's simply unfocused, the meaning vague and obscure.

But, as the 25-year-old Peterson takes pains to point out, the title "Undone" means not defeated or fractured, but unfinished. She's said that writing songs in anything but the first person is inconceivable to her, and the theme running through all 11 of these is one of seeking a connection - some way, any way - with those she loves. The refrain in "Sundays": "Trading tapes, trading taste/trading truth, trading parts of me for parts of you."

The songs that stick to one metaphoric conceit work best, as in the reflective "Coffee Stained" or the simple yearning of "Song Birds" - does she long for a lover or a muse? Or are they the same?

Much of the CD is simply Kate and her guitar, although Sarah Cleaver - with whom she often performs - adds the occasional second voice. Also notable is cellist Rachel Alexander, whose intuitive playing adds an almost sensual color to much of "Undone," and the organic, intimate production sound from Jason Lantrip and his Trash 180 studio.

Chris Rietz works at Elderly Instruments in Lansing. His reviews appear every other week in What's On. Contact him at crietz@lansing.gannett.com

Lansing singer-songwriter gets even more personal on Undone
Carla Kucinski | NOISE

Kate Peterson is coming undone.

At age 25, the singer-songwriter has reached a point of transformation in her life, vacillating between where she wants to live, what she wants to do and who she wants to be.

It's a theme that has popped up frequently in Peterson's songwriting during the last year. So much so that she wrote a song about it -- "Undone" -- which also serves as the album's title.

"The song is about wandering, trying to figure stuff out," the Lansing musician said. "Coming undone doesn't mean in pieces; it means unfinished.

"I'm kind of in a state of not knowing, but I feel fine about that. I'm in a really good place and no matter where I end up, it's going to be good."

Undone is Peterson's second album. She released her self-recorded debut album, More to Me, in 2001. Playing what she calls, "pleasantly aggressive folk," Peterson started performing about four years ago. Since then, she has become well-known in the Lansing singer-songwriter circuit. Along the way, her songwriting has become more sophisticated, her guitar-playing more refined. She still belts out deeply personal, heartfelt lyrics, but with more passion and energy than before. (That worn spot on her guitar has gotten deeper.)

Peterson wanted Undone to be emotionally and musically raw like Lori McKenna's Kitchen Tapes, recorded on a mini-disc player in McKenna's kitchen. Recorded at Jason Lantrip's Lansing studio, Trash 180, Peterson mimics much of the same intimacy of McKenna's album. She sings straight from her gut with an emotional intensity that can cause goosebumps.

"A lot of [the] songs are about me working through s---, growing up," she said. "It's about worrying. I'm 25, I have a lot to figure out."

The intimacy of Undone goes even deeper than Peterson's previous album with songs such as "It Was Nice," about a relationship that Peterson realized she couldn't save and "Sundays," which Peterson wrote for her partner and is "the most intense, outwardly personal song" Peterson said she has ever written.

"When those words were written, they weren't meant to go to anyone else," she said, laughing. "I'm definitely an e-mail poet. I write lots of e-mails like that and that's how it came out in an e-mail. But it was a big step for me to put that out there. It's very personal. Most people don't show that side of themselves."

Songwriting for Peterson is a lot like journaling, except for the fact that she then shares those words with strangers on stage.

"Maybe I'm oblivious to the fact that other people hear these words and know this about me," she said. "I never think about how vulnerable it makes me. When I'm on stage, I'm not hiding anything. I'm completely straightforward, even if I'm rambling about what I did that day, what my insecurities are at that moment or how I'm embarrassed that I'm sweating so much. I don't think of it as me telling secrets.

"The idea of writing a song about something other than me feels really strange. I have never written some fiction folk song about some guy down the river. Am I supposed to be able to do that?"