THE CLOCK IS TICKING

And I'm paddling furiously...

This week I’m feeling a little bit like a swan furiously paddling under the surface of the water while everything appears to glide along effortlessly on top.

Today marks precisely one month until the third studio album, As We Once Were, is officially released on August 7th and my head is spinning slightly…

This week it feels like everything is headed in the right direction: there’s been big interviews, huge additions to daytime radio playlists at Virgin Radio and BBC Wales, Throw Over Your Man is a track of the week on a big commercial radio station. All the signs point to the positive in terms of getting the album to the ears of more people.

Behind the scenes, there’s a huge amount of hard work going into this album campaign. And also a lot of near misses, didn’t-happens, failures of sorts. Things we would have liked to land that didn’t quite land. I don’t shout about those on social media. I don’t share them in what now feels like a daily bombardment of announcements of success, of look how great everything is going. But of course, this is only ever half of the picture.

It’s hard not to feel, these days, as if the algorithm demands your constant attention as an artist, let alone as a fan. In some form, I’ve found myself enslaved to this mean little machine over the past few months, after being chained to my studio desk for the preceding years.

Without context, all this online activity might just sound like an overgrown toddler demanding your attention just because they want it. But it’s getting harder than ever to get heard above the noise of online life. So I wanted to briefly explain again what’s really behind all the requests to “pre-save, pre-order, share, and add to playlist”.

You see, it really does matter if you’re able to make that purchase in advance of the album coming out. Not only will it mean that it sends the right signal to that darn algorithm but it also means, on a practical level, that we can make sure that we press just the right amount of vinyl. Make enough cassettes. And Ian (at my label Last Night From Glasgow) can rest a little easier. It makes sure that Amazon don’t run out on day 2, as we did with the release of The Art of Losing…

So thank you for being here for this bit — the paddling bit, not just the gliding bit.

Here’s one thing that I really enjoyed doing this week, amidst all the furious footwork:

MY LIFE & TIMES INTERVIEW WITH TED KESSLER FOR THE NEW CUE: On punching bullies in the face, being half drowned by a priest, and why I wouldn’t want to mess with the space-time continuum.

Also, if you haven’t seen JJ Eringa’s spectacular video, watch it here:

Thank you for being here for this bit — the paddling bit, not just the gliding bit. See you on the other side of August 7th.

Catherine x

Preorder As We Once Were here: found.ee/AsWeOnceWere