Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith shares new song + video “Gush” + new album details and tour dates!

Today, electronic music artist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith shares the title track to her forthcoming album, GUSH. The song follows recent releases “Into Your Eyes” and “What’s Between Us.” “Gush” opens on a bouncy backbeat before blossoming into a hypnotic explosion of synthesizers and translucent vocals that build and bubble over. With “Gush,” Kaitlyn explores the idea of flirtation – living in the nuances of what it means to be inviting and alluring with people and things. The song ties into the larger themes of love and object empathy – stemming from design language and the philosophical foundations of “aesthetics” that can be heard throughout the record. 

Kaitlyn explains more:

“This song is about flirtation

it’s about all the ways there are to interact – a shared understanding – without the need for words. 

A mutual recognition of each other’s genius, whether it is through personification of an idea or thing or a person.

Flirtation is a form of communication, where the smallest gestures hold layers of meaning.

It is about filling everything with meaning

It is about admiration for spectrum – and an openness for where 2 things create gradients. 

It’s about recognizing the “hidden” in everything, understanding the pull that draws us toward what resonates, and finding deeper meaning in every exchange.

The ability to connect with and understand something beyond its surface.” 

Kaitlyn’s next project, GUSH, speaks to the genius of everything and the empathy of objects. NPR’s All Songs Considered hosts Robin Hilton and Sheldon Pearce touched on the themes of “magical realism” and the way she explores sound’s effects on the body, praising the “celestial” sonics. GUSH is due out on August 22nd via Nettwerk.

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!

WATCH & SHARE Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s “Gush” Video Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DtnoOVol34

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-releases 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.