Kashka
soft
Independent, kashka.bandcamp.com
This latest EP from Toronto’s Kat Burns is not cheery. Quarantine fatigue, seasonal affective disorder, loneliness, exhaustion, winter, and a longing for escape constitute most of the content here, though not all. “When life gets hard, I get soft,” she sings. But even in softness, Burns is prolific, having at least managed to rally the energy to record, produce and mix these six tracks on her own. The absence of a critical eye or an editor’s ear is noticeable on a couple of tracks, but it doesn’t detract from the overall experience: despondent folk songs draped in restraint. A companion, all instrumental EP, softer, hammers home the mood.