Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith shares new song & video “Drip”; New Album out in August!

Today, electronic music artist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith releases a new song and video, “Drip,” the album opener from her forthcoming full-length, GUSH. “Drip” is a bass-rattling expression of empathy. The accompanying music video was choreographed by Vogue dancer Kailani Rae and directed by Malachi of Haus of Basquiat. 

Kaitlyn explains:

“This song is about complexity. 

Something consisting of many different and connected parts. 

It is about being with someone or something as they struggle to untangle.

It is about the experience of witnessing something untangle and being asked not to interfere but just be there with them/it & to believe in them/ it. 

It is about remembering that we don’t need to have all the answers to be there – sometimes, simply being with something or someone in their pain is the most powerful act of love and understanding. 

Sometimes it is enough and EVERYTHING to just be witnessed.”

On the video concept Kaitlyn shares:

“I took Vogue dance lessons from Kailani in Los Angeles for a while and asked her if she would choreograph a movement piece for me for this video. Spending time with the Los Angeles Vogue community has been an integral part of my own untangling identity journey. Kailani recommended making the video with Malachi – an incredible photographer & videographer in Los Angeles.”

She adds: “Kailani teaches regular classes in Los Angeles and always begins her class with some words on the history of vogue.”

WATCH & SHARE KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH “DRIP”
OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO HERE:
https://youtu.be/4EkZLHNjfno

Kaitlyn is excited to bring her live show to the forefront at some UK festivals this summer, starting with the Polygon Festival in London on May 3rd. The immersive festival will see Kaitlyn perform alongside John Hopkins, Max Cooper, and others. She’s also announced to appear at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland and the We Out Here Festival in Wimborne, UK. Find the dates below and stay tuned for more tour dates, which will be announced soon!

ABOUT KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH:

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is a classically trained American composer, performer, and producer from the Pacific Northwest. Her music is a form of auditory interpretation powered by curiosity and her toolkit of modular, analog, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral textures, and voice. Since her first self-release in 2012 (Tides), she has explored the endless possibilities of electronic instruments and the relationship between sound, shape, color, body movement, and expression. 

GUSH follows Kaitlyn’s recent collaboration with Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard on the 2024 Neptunes EP, and it marks the first taste of new music since her 2022 full-length Let’s Turn It Into Sound, which was nominated for the LIBERA Awards’ Best Electronic Album of the Year and won the praise of NPR Music, Pitchfork, The Guardian, Bandcamp, and more. In GUSH, she sets her sights on aesthetics, focusing on the heightened awareness of and presence in the world, where every interaction—whether with people, objects, or nature—has the potential to become a moment of connection and personification. 

In her own words:

Gush – is about those “Look at this” moments…

shared between people…

It is about flirtation with objects and the environment…

It is about sensuality and personification…

It is about synesthesia and surrendering to those moments when the senses melt together…

It is about “ the third thing” that is created when 2 things come together…

It is about the way the human form is in service of…

It is about experiencing the genius of everything…                  –KAS

Kaitlyn finds wild, rippling inspiration in tactile moments, partly due to her abiding appreciation of aesthetics (a philosophical approach to the principles of beauty) and, in part, to her synesthesia. “Where some people mix things like color and taste, I get physical urges in correlation to sound,” she says. On GUSH, Smith conveys that experience in a newly direct density and intensity, finding flirtatious meaning in dimensions and structures, emotional resonance in the personification of well-loved objects. By focusing on the metaphysical aura that surrounds that attraction rather than the thing itself, GUSH finds a hypnagogic caress in the profundity of any given second.

Throughout her career, Kaitlyn has been celebrated for embracing her urges, whether towards experimental production, Buchla synth mastery, or exploring the intersection of sound, voice, body, and form. She’s performed alongside artists like Hot Chip, Glass Beams, RY X, Caribou, and Four Tet, and composed original works for Apple, BBC Orchestra, Adult Swim, MoMA, Red Bull, and others. Kaitlyn’s song “Stratus” was also synced in the 2023 film Priscilla Motion Picture Soundtrack.