I am about to review a “Week in June” in July – but time is relative – I mean June? July? Both with a ‘J!’ This time we headed off to Minneapolis to have a listen to emerging modern jazz/folk artist Kaatwalk. If you like acoustic guitars, thoughtful songwriting and girls getting blown around in the wind (see picture below), then this is absolutely one for you! We have made it into a bit of a reading treat as we bring you both an exclusive interview with Kaat, and then we review the EP.
Photo: Hrishi Shah.
THE BAND:
Kaat- vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
Marv Gohman- fiddle, mandolin, electric guitar, banjo, harmonica, harmony
John Wright- electric bass and upright bass
Daryl Boudreaux- Percussion
Interview:
Hi! I’ve never heard you or your music before. You’re in the mood to impress—which song should I listen to first, and why?
Kaat: Ooo, great question! Well, if you ask me this today, I would say go listen to “A Week in June” only because it’s happy, relatable, and gives you permission to smile at life. Plus, I’m absolutely in love with the way we recorded this song. It features incredible drum sounds by Jeremy Harvey, mandolin sounds by Marv Gohman, cello sounds by Greg Byers, and electric guitar and upright bass by John Wright. We recorded this at Villa West Studio with John Wright! That being said, I love all of my music, and I would tell them to put me on shuffle.
“A Week in June” is very personal – folk storytelling for the modern world, you never smoked- but used to smoke weed etc – (even constipation makes it into the lyric) – the silky dress and the flying gazebo etc….I have spoken to some songwriters who say they get these lyrics in their heads and they will scribble them down as soon as they arrive so they don’t forget them. Your song is like a patchwork quilt of memories – do you write a song to echo your world, or are they trips of imagination?
Kaat: Every story in the song is an absolute true story. I sat down and wrote this in one sitting and did not reference any prior lyrics. I just simply reflected on my week.
I wrote the first verse when I came home from the thrift store feeling pretty disappointed because they had absolutely nothing from my Pinterest board, I had $40 of returns that I didn’t get to use, and my coffee was freaking six dollars. So I got my guitar and sat down under the dining room table, as one does (I’ve written quite a few songs under there), and I wrote the first 2 verses.
“I’m so sick of seeing skinny jeans at the Goodwill by my house,
I want a silky dress covered in strawberries
Or maybe a purse with a painted-on horse
I’m searching for a jacket with rainbows and fringe.
I have no money to spend on this shit
But I’ve got $40 of returns in the car
We’ve got time to waste and an overpriced drink, but I shouldn’t be out taxes draining my account this year.”
(That was my first year doing my taxes as a full-time musician, and I was ill-prepared for the self-employment tax.)
I initially wrote those verses as a joke. I showed my partner, and he said it had legs. He said I should keep going. Right after that, I really took a moment to reflect on my week in each verse, as it was filled with birthdays, chess games, dental surgery, painkillers, constipation, dry sockets, thrift shopping, hangovers, new hats, running around everywhere, gigging, having zero dollars, and Marv getting beat up by a gazebo at a gig. It was all that shit, but with a glistening summer lens. So, ya know, just an average week in June.
“I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I used to smoke weed
Now I collect trinkets and treasures and tiddlywinks
Used to want to be tough, now I want to be sweet
Used to not be enough, but I’ve set myself free”
These lines are about realizing how freeing it is when you stop fighting the person inside. It’s better to surrender to them. Life is a lot easier that way.
I learned something important. I learned to not only embrace the chaos of life but to enjoy the silly inconveniences because life is short and can be beautiful. It’s important to smile at life. It’s important to enjoy the mundane, and it’s quite a lot of fun to embrace the chaos of a busy week.
“Home” has a lovely melody, more of a lament lyrically – from personal experience we leave home but it is hard when those we love are no longer there and we wish we had come home more. Tell me about that song…
Kaat: I wrote this song when I was realizing that my grandparents were aging more. I was aching to see them because they were both having some health issues, and I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could. I did not own a car, and they live five hours away from me, so I didn’t get to see them more than once a year when I was hitching a ride from my cousins over the holidays. When my mom would leave for weekend trips, I couldn’t hitch a ride because I’m always playing on the weekends.
I put the song “Home” on the EP because I want my grandparents, who live far away, to be able to listen to it, as it’s about their house in Beaver Dam, WI. It’s about all my good memories of going to my grandparents’ home over the years. I wanted to honor them. It’s a place where we are all loved unconditionally, and that’s really special.
Your music feels very intimate and tailor-made for an audience close and with a campfire feel. Which songs of yours have surprised you the most when played live, and are there any tracks that took on a completely different synergy once they left the studio and met an audience?
Kaat: Well, my songs don’t really leave the studio and hit an audience. They usually start with an audience and then get taken to the studio. I’ve performed a song for an audience written on the same day before. When I am in the studio and I’m recording a vocal, I try to focus on channeling the emotions of the song while also channeling a point of connection between me and the audience. Because when we record a song, we’re still going to be heard by an audience, just digitally. You can especially hear this on the second track of the EP, “Home,” and the song “4 O’clock” that will be on my album this fall!
Minnesota has produced some remarkable songwriters over the years. Is there something about the place itself—the seasons, the people, the culture—that you think finds its way into your music?
Kaat: For sure! First of all, I definitely do a lot of writing in the first six months of the year. I’m usually gigging so much over the summertime, and by the fall, I feel pretty burnt out. I also think there’s something very special about Minnesota. The people are so kind and caring and loving. The culture is also beautiful because it’s very full of looking out for one another. Plus, there’s a lot of art here and support for the arts. In fact, my song “Open Your Eyes” talks a lot about the community and references not only my frustration with the situation but also the love that I saw happening here in MN during the hard winter of the 2026 Metro Surge Operation. That song is like a documented journal of everything I saw here in the Twin Cities.
I specifically reference the love and kindness Minnesotans have for each other in these lyrics:
“I saw my neighbor giving out food and coats
I saw a child get detained
I saw a girl with a sign today
With words of loss and words of love…”
Minnesota looks out for each other, and despite the freezing cold, there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than right here..
Looking at the cover artwork, there is a sense of freedom, movement, and almost childlike joy. How important is visual imagery to your songwriting? Do songs begin with pictures in your mind or with words and melodies?
Kaat: We worked on the artwork after the entire album was fully finished. These beautiful shots were done by Minnesota photographer and videographer Hrishi Shah. We wanted to really capture the feeling of this EP, as the conclusion of the song “A Week in June” is freeing yourself from what you believe others may be thinking of you and letting yourself be exactly who you are. The entire EP is surrendering to pure honesty and authenticity and not only accepting who you are, what you feel, and what you think, but fully embracing it, and I really wanted the album art to convey that.
Most of my songs start with a lyrical, honest declaration of how I’m feeling and a melody that conveys it. Then I find the chords that go with the melody. Then I just start trying out a ton of words to that melody that feel authentic to exactly however I’m feeling. I never usually start writing a song with a conclusion in mind. It usually unravels a conclusion for me and helps me discover something about myself. Very much like journaling, where you arrive is very different than where you started.
“A Week in June” feels like a collection of snapshots from a particular time and place. Is there a special song (not necessarily yours) that immediately transports you back to a special moment in your life?
Kaat: I saw a quote once that said, “Art is how you decorate your walls, and music is how you decorate time.” Every single song I write takes me directly back to the time and the feeling that I wrote it or to a memory that I made with it along the way. I would say that pretty much every song that I hear again in my life transports me back to a moment. I would say one of the more recent experiences I’ve had with this is when I heard the song “Little Things Mean a Lot” by Kitty Kallen, and it immediately transported me back to the time. My grandpa sang me that song when I spent the night with him in the hospital. It was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever shared with him.
Fun Question -It is a hard winter’s night. The tour van/bus has broken down and a harsh wind blows through the night. Nearby you see a small house, it seems abandoned, yet there is a fire burning, food on the table and working electricity. While you wait for morning – what book and what film will get you through the night?
Kaat: Well, if this ever happened, I would hope that I have my crochet with me. I would probably work on making a sweater and watch “The Colors Within” by Naomi Yamada. It’s a really nice, feel-good anime movie about these kids who form a band and write music together, and they get trapped by a snowstorm as well. That movie is a serious piece of art, in my opinion.
Review
The EP was released June 26, 2026 so is out on all platforms now.
The EP has four songs and lasts just over 15 minutes.
“A Week in June” – is a rather charming, and cynical, modern folk tale built from the ordinary objects of everyday life. It reminded me of a hectic diary never intended to be read by anyone else – it is full of these little observant (and funny) observations of self. Perhaps there is no need to make sense of it, just keep smiling Kaat tells us – best advice I have had all day!
“Home” plucks the acoustic guitar and beckons us all to sit around the singer. It tells us that chasing dreams around the East Coast are what they are, home is home. It’s like my cat, he watches the world go by, and observes me doing this work, but the rug, or space on the window sill) is home! Kaat curls us up in the music and her voice in my headphones is so clear, she is there!
“Open Your Eyes”leans further into country, the guitar is having more of a dance with us; the rhythm a bit faster and the mood turns to Summer nights, love and a drink – while the government forces confront the people of Minneapolis in the very streets they walk. Music always has a context, and sometimes beautiful vocals can sing a song best suited for a colder day. There is a cold wind blowing when a child loses their mum. This is a song of the moment, a soundtrack for Minneapolis in 2026.
“Thank You for being You” – at 5.23 this is the longest track on the EP. It brings a piano to the EP, very stripped back, very personal. It is a song for a special person we may have in life, a track that takes you along with it – but I know I should have been listening to this in the very early hours of morning, it doesn’t belong in the heat of the afternoon.
Kaatwalk has produced an EP that never tries to shout above the noise. Instead, it quietly invites you into four moments of one person’s life and somehow makes them feel like your own. There is honesty here, gentle humour, and an appreciation that even the most ordinary weeks can contain remarkable stories if we stop long enough to notice them. “A Week in June” may only last fifteen minutes, but it leaves behind the feeling that you’ve spent far longer in the company of an old friend—and that’s about as high a compliment as any folk record can receive.
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You can stream music from Kaatwalk here
By Anna-Louise Burgess
and
Mark C. Chambers
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