Katy Pinke

Katy Pinke’s songs are self-examinations—cerebral and unsparing, but reaching toward a more promising future. The Manhattan-based singer-songwriter, painter and actor mixes the precise and wry delivery of The Roches and Connie Converse with the idiosyncratic songforms of her espoused hero Bill Callahan. The songs on her self-titled debut album possess a direct and inviting quality, but within each, a quiet battle is being waged in an ongoing struggle to, as Pinke puts it, “unconditionally love a fragmented self.”

The album strips Pinke’s art down to its absolute essence. At the home studio of Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Cass McCombs), she recorded her vocals and minimal guitar accompaniments live with drummer Jeremy Gustin in front of an audience of a few friends. The idea was to capture the energy of Pinke’s live shows—storied events in the NYC indie rock scene. (Artists she has shared the stage with include Laura Veirs, Jolie Holland, TV On the Radio’s Kyp Malone, and Indigo Sparke.)