Have you ever been driving in your car when you suddenly hear a new-to-you song that’s really, really good? Of course you have. Well, that totally happened to us this morning when we were driving to our office and Murphy Kaye‘s “Headlong” came on the radio. “Whoa,” we said as we were listening to WMSE’s always-excellent Shape Of Rock show. “Who’s this? This sounds like an old Juliana Hatfield/Blake Babies song or something. That keyboard! That bass! That chorus! Wait, this is local? How did we miss this? This is great!”
Anyway, here it is. Murphy Kaye released “Headlong” back in November 2020. We’re sorry we slept on it for so long. It is indeed great. (It’s also a great driving song, as evidenced by the video.)
Murphy Kaye is the new-ish project name of Milwaukee musician Gabby Powell—formerly of the band ako, formerly of the solo project Wanderslut. (Why the Wanderslut name change? “Apparently radio stations get real prickly when you put a naughty word in your music and even prickly-er when the naughty word is half of the artist’s name,” Kaye explains on Facebook.)
Okay, so “Headlong” came out in 2020. What’s Kaye up to in 2021? From another Facebook post:
In 2021, Murphy Kaye is confronting the anxiety of working without a writing partner by generating one new song every week for a calendar year, in addition to releasing several new, official singles. She also co-founded and actively collaborates with the Milwaukee artist collective Meltwater Pulse to develop and flesh out her songs. Murphy Kaye cites the group as one of the reasons her music “is only going to get better.”
Check out a preview of Kaye’s one-song-a-week project below. We’ll be listening.