Katie Pruitt - Fools for the Fleeting Tour

Katie Pruitt is living proof of music’s power to transform the way we experience the world. Soon <br>after the arrival of her acclaimed debut Expectations—a 2020 LP on which she documented her <br>journey in growing up queer in the Christian South—the Georgia-bred singer/songwriter/guitarist <br>heard from countless listeners that her songs had impacted their lives on an elemental level. With <br>her sophomore album Mantras, the Nashville-based musician now looks inward to explore such <br>matters as gender identity, self-compassion or the lack thereof, and the struggle for peace in times of <br>chaos and uncertainty—ultimately arriving at a body of work that speaks to the strength in undoing <br>harmful self-beliefs and fully living your truth. <br /><br />Mainly produced by Collin Pastore and Jake Finch (known for their work with boygenius and Lucy <br>Dacus), Mantras delves deeper into the empathetic storytelling and incisive self-examination that <br>defined Expectations—an album that earned Pruitt a nomination for Emerging Artist of the Year <br>from the Americana Music Association and drew praise from major outlets like Rolling Stone (who <br>hailed Pruitt as a “dynamic new presence”) and Pitchfork (who noted that “[h]er songs are patient <br>but determined, navigating serious subjects with quiet familiarity”). This time around, Pruitt sets her <br>lived-in lyricism to a folk-leaning sound informed by her love for the more experimental edges of <br>indie-rock, stacking her songs with plenty of propulsive grooves and overdriven guitars as well as <br>working with musicians like string arranger Laura Epling (Orville Peck, Spencer Cullum). <br /><br />Although several songs took shape with the help of co-writers like singer/songwriter Ruston Kelly <br>(Bethany Cosentino, Amanda Shires), Pruitt wrote most of Mantras on her own and imbued her <br>lyrics with an expansive element of autobiography. In penning the album-opening “All My Friends <br>(Are Finding New Beliefs),” she mined inspiration from a Christian Wiman poem of the same name, <br>dreaming up a fuzzed-out and summery track etched with both self-aware reflection and sharp- <br>witted observation on the search for clarity and purpose. Next, on “White Lies, White Jesus and <br>You,” Pruitt shares a hazy yet frenetic meditation on hypocrisy in religion, tapping into her intense <br>frustration with conservative Christian ideology. A profoundly introspective album, Mantras turns <br>the lens on her own inner life with songs like “Self Sabotage”—a gloriously cathartic track that <br>opens up about her struggle with negative thought loops. Meanwhile, on “Blood Related,” Pruitt <br>presents a raw but poetic rumination on how family can sometimes feel like strangers, enlisting her <br>mother as a background vocalist and embedding the track with audio recordings of her father and <br>brother from old home videos. And while Mantras often pushes into emotionally heavy terrain, its <br>songs frequently echo the radiant sense of joy and discovery that defined the album-making process. <br>On “Naive Again,” for instance, Pruitt infuses the bright and dreamy tones of glockenspiel and <br>xylophone into her melancholy contemplation on loss of innocence. <br /><br />Looking over the tracklist to Mantras, Pruitt notes that a certain narrative thread emerged without <br>her intention. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but the throughline for this record ended up being my <br>own personal journey of letting go and learning how to love myself again—it begins with tension, <br>frustration, and fear and resolves to a place of acceptance, surrender, and stillness,” she says. “I hope <br>when people hear the record they feel what I felt after writing it, which was a sense of trusting <br>myself and trusting that—no matter how bad things look—there’s always hope where there’s fear. I <br>know that so much of the time we feel alone in our pain, so hopefully these songs help everyone to <br>see that they can work through those big life changes and end up loving themselves a lot more.” <br /><br />Preferred Mezzanine includes access to the house left mezzanine on the second floor with limited lounge seating available first come, first served.