Los Angeles singer-songwriter Cat Matthews returns today with a new single “Kaleidoscope Eyes,” the track is off the Los Angeles artist’s forthcoming, debut album due next year. Tracked live on a 16-track tape machine and co-produced with Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers, Maya Hawke, Christian Lee Hutson), Matthews’ wrote these songs entirely in her head after she was left voiceless.

Matthews, thought she might never sing again after the incorrect removal of an anesthesia tube resulted in a 5-centimeter tear to her trachea. A long road to recovery lay ahead as she was rendered completely mute for months. While grappling with doubts about whether she’d ever talk, let alone sing again, she found solitude and a new form of self-expression in songwriting. The result was a gorgeous compilation of songs that tackled that period where doubt and fear were heavy on her mind but determination and hope proved stronger.

A serendipitous meeting led to Matthews and Vore working together. “I walked into Marshall’s house a stranger and before I knew it 10 hours had passed,” shares Cat. “We spent the entire day talking about music and our beliefs and life over some really good lattes that he had made. Our meeting came at a time when I was feeling really uncertain about pursuing a career in music— he made me feel excited to create again.”

Marshall adds, “I don’t think about the music that Cat and I made as something that we made for any particular reason. I am not trying to be epic or precious about making a big statement—the making of the record and the memories we made while doing it was the epic part. Looking back, it is very obvious to me that this record is not a product, but a byproduct of time well spent together.”

The new single, “Kaleidoscope Eyes,” was one of the final tracks she wrote for this project and was a hard look at a misguided relationship. “I had gone through a really cruel, year-long emotional affair with someone who was in a relationship with someone else,” Cat shares, “We had become really close romantic friends against my better judgment and attempted boundary setting; when he got caught, he abruptly cut me out of his life on a 10-minute phone call. I felt so much misplaced guilt and assumed a lot of self-loathing. One night as I was grappling with my feelings, crying in my car, the street lights looked glimmery and fuzzy and beautiful through my tears. I wrote this song the next day.”

order “Kaleidoscope Eyes” by Cat Matthews HERE