Kate Bollinger

An indie singer/songwriter raised in Virginia, Kate Bollinger crafts introspective, jazz-inflected material whose gentle atmospheres rely on intricate extended chords while her bright, warm vocals take center stage. Early tracks moved across folk, indie rock, and R&B territory before she locked into a mellow indie pop sound on her second EP, the 2019 release I Don't Wanna Lose. One track from that set, “Candy,” was later sampled for and helped shape Kanye West’s 2021 song “Donda.” Bollinger made her first appearance on Ghostly International with the 2022 EP Look at It in the Light, and the label issued her closely observed debut album, Songs from a Thousand Frames of Mind, in 2024. Drawing from ’60s and ’70s pop, rock, and folk, the record’s delicate, time-worn tone was shaped alongside Matthew E. White, Sam Evian, and other frequent collaborators.

Childhood in Charlottesville found her harmonizing regularly with her mother, a music therapist, while her older brothers pursued their own projects in the family basement. She began posting self-recorded songs online in 2013 and soon started performing in local venues. After several years of limited-run CD-Rs, her first proper EP, Key West, appeared in October 2017. Jay Purdy and Todd Erk produced the sessions, which featured members of Philadelphia indie rock outfit the Extraordinaires—Purdy on piano, Matt Gibson on bass, and Mike Harkness on drums. Additional material cut with John Trainum over the following years included the two-song single “Dreams Before.”

Her second EP, I Don't Wanna Lose, arrived in 2019 and featured Trainum on synthesizer and keyboards, Chris Lewis on lead guitar, Jimmy Trussell on bass, and Jacob Grissom on drums. The release opened doors to support slots with Soccer Mommy and a tour alongside Wild Nothing. The next year she issued another Trainum-produced collection, the self-released A word becomes a sound.

An unforeseen 2021 credit arrived when Kanye West’s album Donda incorporated a sample of “Candy,” though the interpolation was ultimately removed from the finished track. Bollinger spent the period opening for Jeff Tweedy, Real Estate, and Faye Webster, then returned in April 2022 with her fourth EP, Look at It in the Light, on Ghostly International. Cut with Trainum and augmented by a string section, the sessions took cues from 1960s and ’70s recordings—particularly Beatles demos—with an emphasis on highlighting individual instruments while embracing natural imperfections.

Those same mid-century influences resurfaced on her full-length debut, a stylistically broader yet consistently understated collection that favored vintage instrumentation and drew from the era’s pop, folk, and rock traditions. Matthew E. White, Sam Evian, Adam Brisbin, and Jacob Grissom all contributed to the arrangements, and Songs from a Thousand Frames of Mind reached listeners via Ghostly in September 2024.