Someday, Now, the third excellent record from Katy J Pearson, exudes an assuredness both in the Bristol-based songwriter’s sense of self and artistic expression. Previous critically acclaimed releases from Pearson were anchored by a vivacious blend of synth-pop and Americana. Her vocal stylings and entrancing arrangements often drew comparisons to Kate Bush for their immediacy and singularity.

Prefacing her latest work, Pearson proclaims, “I’ve found my way back to myself”. Throughout Someday, Now’s exceptional ten-song tracklist, we follow the trajectory of finding that confidence. On “Constant”, one of the LPs more introspective compositions, we hear her intone, “I could be something / I just get in my way”. This self-doubt is replaced on “Maybe”, one of the many highlights from the record, with Pearson shutting down any inklings of imposter syndrome with a defiant turn, “Yes I am deserving”. In this regard, Pearson has penned some of her most resonating and earnest lyrics on Someday, Now. If her 2020 debut Return and its equally captivating follow-up Sound of The Morning piqued audiences’ attention enough to dip into her discography, then Pearson’s latest work will, undoubtedly, solidify a strong bond between her and her listeners.

This marked personal and artistic development resulted from a period of self-preservation enhanced by travel and returning to the studio with a magnificent team featuring Nathan Jenkins aka Bullion on production duties (his credits include Carly Rae Jepsen, Nilüfer Yanya and Avalon Emerson) and an electrifying backing band comprised of Pearson’s Heavenly Recordings labelmates such as Davey Newington (Boy Azooga) and Huw Evans (H Hawkline) alongside Joel Burton. Each brings their own distinct dynamic and sensibility to the record, complimenting Pearson’s effortless ear to craft an enduring hook. Here, the tonal palette contains shades of Fleetwood Mac (her vocals often herald a similar raspiness to Stevie Nicks), Tears For Fears, Roxy Music and Cate Le Bon with a gorgeous array of warm sax flourishes, infectious bumbling bass riffs and unexpected manipulations adding to Someday, Now’s irresistible sonic essence.

Ahead of Someday, Now’s highly anticipated release on September 20th via Heavenly Recordings, Northern Transmissions spoke with Katy J Pearson about how her songwriting process changed this time around, allowing herself to be vulnerable, the importance of trust in the studio and what film soundtrack she’d love to re-interpret.

Northern Transmissions: I’m delighted to be speaking with you about your new album Someday, Now because I particularly enjoyed Sound of The Morning, which you released in 2022. With your latest album, I was really taken by the sonic evolution in your songwriting and the overall sonic palette and production. H. Hawkline plays on this album, he took the photo that was used for Sound of The Morning’s artwork, right? It’s so nice to see that collaboration continue and expand into new creative territories.

Katy J Pearson: Oh yeah, definitely. It feels very special. I was actually just talking to my friend yesterday about how I started in music at a very young age and before this project, I was signed to a major label and at that time I felt quite isolated. To now be into my third solo record and have some really close collaborators and friends that I know I can always go back to feels really important and just very special.

NT: Absolutely. It’s really interesting to see the list of musicians that you’ve collaborated with over the years such as Orlando Weeks, Morgan Simpson of black midi, as well as members of Caroline and Black Country, New Road. It feels like there’s a strong community around you.

Katy J Pearson: I feel very lucky to have connected with those people because, you know, you don’t necessarily connect with everyone. And, fortunately, the people that I have connected with, it’s very useful that they’re also really fantastic at music and that they’re willing to come and give their input to things, especially Morgan! The time I was working with him was so funny, actually. My dad is the biggest black midi fan and he was so excited that I was in the studio with Morgan. My dad isn’t the most forward or contactable person when he’s using his mobile phone, but that day he randomly called me and he was like, ‘Oh, you’re in the studio with Morgan?’ I put him on speaker and it was so cute. It’s quite funny, also, because they’re both from Hertfordshire and randomly my dad knew someone that Morgan knew. It was a really weird connection.

But yeah, I think it’s important to remember that no matter what genre you’re working within, everyone has a chance to connect.

Northern Transmissions: On your new album, I loved all of the different reference points throughout from Tears For Fears on “Maybe” to Fleetwood Mac on other songs and there are a few instances where your voice really sounded like Stevie Nicks, whilst very much remaining distinct to you and your style. You worked with Nathan Jenkins, aka Bullion, this time. I’m always interested to hear about artist’s playlists or sonic mood-boards leading-up to the recording process. Did you have particular songs or artists that you were inspired by during the making of the songs?

Katy J Pearson: Yeah, absolutely. For this record, I was definitely the most organized I’ve been in actually making a plan rather than going in and throwing shit at the wall. I obviously still did that but there was more planning!I’d been listening to a band called Operating Theatre that Roger Doyle was in in the 1980s and I really liked the synths and lo-fi sounds that they did.

To be honest, I feel like I’m never fully sure where I’m going to go sonically. It’s such a hard thing to figure out. I think being a solo artist, I write songs and then I never know what the clothes or the coinciding look for the songs is going to be because you have such freedom. You don’t have to compromise with any other band members, only the producers, so you’re going in with a completely blank canvas. What helped me work it out this time was that I knew who I wanted to play on the record. That would help inform the sound, and I knew who I wanted to engineer it. My friend Joe Jones, who engineered it, he’s worked with Aldous Harding, Cate Le Bon and Dry Cleaning, so I knew that the stuff that he’d worked on sounded really good. Then mixing that with Bullion felt like a really good shout.

I was very much adamant about live tracking, as well. Joe was slightly unsure about that but I was like, ‘No, this is going to be the right thing to do’. I still wanted to keep a slight live aspect, so that was another element in making the album; I knew that I wanted to track live.

When I got in with Bullion, and we decided we were going to work together, that’s when things started to really slot into place. We had a joint playlist which had Tears For Fears, Anna Domino, Operating Theatre and Arthur Russell. So yeah, I just really trusted Bullion with the songs, I knew he was great and I felt like it was a good situation where I didn’t feel like it was going to be taken over too much.

Northern Transmissions: Something I really enjoyed on your new album is on the opening track where we hear those haunting vocal effects that make it feel like the world around you is crumbling or that there’s a distorted alignment in your psyche. I read that you felt more assured in yourself and your work and you no longer wanted to be so apologetic. In that regard, I think about the song “Maybe” on which you sing, “Yes I am deserving” or the line in “Constant” where you say, “I could be something / I just get in my way”. Writing these songs came after a period of solo-travel and generally taking time for yourself after a busy few years. It’s interesting then to think of how that break from writing music and perhaps doing things like journaling helped to bring you back into that space. Can you tell me about your experience writing this album?

Katy J Pearson: I’ve never really been someone that sits down and writes lyrics. I’ll typically write the instrumental parts and then I’ll get some words out and everything sort of comes at once. I do feel like with this record, and the way I wrote the lyrics, that something opened up within me and felt like I was very authentically speaking the truth. I’ve obviously done that on the other albums, but it takes a long time to fully get to a certain level with it. Being vulnerable is hard. It comes with time and growing-up, I think. When I compare them to the lyrics I wrote when I was 18 in my old band, they weren’t really saying anything about my life. Whereas now, with all the songs on the new record, I can pinpoint the emotion and where It’s coming from.

I’m really, really happy that people seem to be picking up on that because, you know, it’s really hard! It’s also really scary to be so honest. When I think about everyone I love who makes music, it’s very freeing to be so vulnerable. What helped was having that time to get away because I started playing music so young. I didn’t go to university, I didn’t take a gap year. I’ve never done any of those kinds of things. I committed so much of my time to music and then suddenly I was 26 years-old! Of course, I’ve traveled so much with music, but I had never traveled when it wasn’t to do with my job. I was also just feeling quite depressed and just wrecked after the album cycle but I was still saying to my management, ‘I’ll start a new record now!’. They were like, ‘Absolutely not! You’re not making any music right now. You need to just forget that you’re a musician for a second and just go away’. So, that’s exactly what I did and it was great. I think it really helped.

I remember coming back and my housemates saying that I seemed like a different person. I think it really helped my confidence. I have family in Australia, so I saw them and it was just very useful to just be somewhere different for a while and take stock. When I came back, I was only back around a week, and then I went to America to do my first shows there. That felt really exciting, it was a big treat. When I got back from all of that, I was really recharged and ready to start writing again. I had a lot more confidence about what I wanted to do and rather than letting other people plan out my album, not that anyone ever has but I think I could sometimes be a bit of a pushover, I knew exactly who I wanted to work with and I just feel really chuffed that it all came together and what came out of those recording sessions was great!

Northern Transmissions: What were those very early recording sessions, tracking vocals in particular, like because it’s one thing to have your lyrics in a notebook where they’re still private and belong solely to you, but then you have to them in front of people in the studio and they’re picking up on the very personal and vulnerable aspects to your words. How was that experience for you?

Katy J Pearson: It’s never easy! You can feel really exposed, but even yesterday I was in the studio with my friend Joel, who I worked with on the record, and the lyrics were about a failed relationship and were very vulnerable about what I’m yearning for. There was a moment where it’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s so personal,’ but then, you know, you remember that everyone is yearning for something. So, instead, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna just sing this out’. I think what I’ve learned from this record is that it’s so important who you have around you when you’re doing this. I never felt embarrassed, I felt like it was just me doing my thing. They write songs in a similar way and I knew they respected me so I felt like I wasn’t going to feel embarrassed for singing songs about heartbreak or things going wrong in my life. I think, especially for women, we can maybe feel like it’s not legit sometimes but they all made me feel legit.

NT: You’re talking about heartbreak or not feeling confident in yourself or worthy of certain things be it personally or professionally and they’re such universal themes. In one way or another, everyone has shared those feelings and that’s why we have [particularly artists that we turn to to listen to their music.

Katy J Pearson: Absolutely. I’m really learning now… and I’m very lucky that I have music as a format where I can do that. I can express myself other than say going to therapy. I have another way of dissecting things. From an early age, it really has been a way of dealing with stuff and I hope this doesn’t sound really pretentious, but it does feel like second nature. It’s always been something I’ve done and I love writing songs like this and I think that’s actually why sonically I sometimes get confused by what I am and what I’m doing because I never set out to be a certain sound or wanting to sound like this band or that artist. I just really enjoyed writing songs. For me, it’s good to be that way because it means I have the freedom to kind of go in any direction.

NT: Yeah, of course. Also, the music you love as a teenager may be completely different to the music you love when you’re in your 20s and 30s. When you talk about figuring out what kind of sound you want to make in your music, it totally makes sense that you want to do whatever feels right at the moment and continue growing and doing different things because that’s part of growing and developing as a person and also making sure that your work is always interesting for you to engage with.

Katy J Pearson: Definitely. I really feel that way. Making records is hard and it can be pretty overwhelming because you’re trying to make something that you relate to and you feel proud of and that you think is good. Obviously the industry is all over the shop and a lot of artists are forced to cancel tours and financially it’s a lot to manage, but I feel like I’ve just realized that the main thing is that I’ve simplified my equation which is that I write the songs and then whatever at the time feels like the right way to be recording them is how to do it. I think it’s just about doing what’s right for the songs. There’s all these amazing people to work with, but serving the song first is most important to me.

NT: Is there a lyric from Someday, Now that encapsulates the overall mood of the album and the time in your life when you were writing it?

Katy J Pearson: The last song on the album, “Sky”, feels like a big statement. The chorus is, “I’m through it / Pushed to exist, not on my knees. Look how I go / I’m an eagle, I am the sky”. For me, it feels like me realizing my resilience in what I do and my self-belief, I guess. And for me to be like, ‘I’ve got this and I’m capable.’ It was really a love song to myself to say, ‘You can do this’.

At the time, I was just starting to write the record and I was terrified! I was like, right, I was in the studio just thinking to myself, ‘Who am I? What am I? What am I doing?’. Then this song came out and I was surprised that my inner child, my inner consciousness was actually like, ‘No, actually, you’re fine’. So, yeah, that song felt very special to write.

I also quite like “It’s Mine Now”. I like the ownership of the tragedy. It feels really dramatic! I just really love the kind of sentiment of owning your pain and owning bad experiences and being like, ‘This is my thing and I’ve dealt with it’ and I just love how dramatic it is.

NT: Yeah, the atmosphere throughout the album in that way is so captivating and inviting. Finally, your previous album finished with a cover of “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man. That was followed last year with a collaborative EP you made featuring songs from the film. I was wondering what films you’ve been enjoying recently and if there’s a song from a film that you’d love to cover for fun?

Katy J Pearson: I just saw the Kneecap film which is amazing. They’re so funny and I think it’s just amazing to see what they’re doing for the Irish language. It’s just really wonderful. My friend watched it with me and she’s Welsh and speaks fluent Welsh and she was buzzing after watching it and was weeping because she’s very passionate about the Welsh language and it was just very moving. So that’s a film I really enjoyed recently.

In terms of covering a song or music from a film, that’s a really good question. The first thing that came to my head, which just would not work, is the Lord of The Rings. But, that’s just not going to work! Do you know what has also come to mind, I was talking to my friend yesterday about Fight Club and the soundtrack. I think it could be quite funny to rework that soundtrack into covers. I’m trying to think of other films and soundtracks… Oh, also, the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack is incredible but I actually don’t think anyone can cover that. I think it’s too special.

NT: So you’re going with the Fight Club soundtrack?

Katy J Pearson: Yeah, I think so. It’s quite weird… You know what, hang on, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

NT: I’ve actually never seen that. It’s been on my list for a really long time!

Katy J Pearson: I’ve only seen it once, I can’t remember what happens in the film but I know the soundtrack is great. I feel like it would be really funny to go really weird and make a concept album inspired by The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

pre-order Someday, Now by Kate J Pearson HERE