Kat Reinhert – Other People’s Stories

# Kat Reinhert – Other People’s Stories

With Other People’s Stories Kat Reinhert is moving away from the realm of autobiography and into the world of other people’s lives. The EP is about the people we meet, the stories we make up and the experiences we might have in common. There are five songs in total, each one looking at a different aspect of life: connection, loss, ageing, relationships, regret, resilience and the choices we make. Some of the stories are based on real people, some are drawn from very brief encounters and the potential of another life. Rather than trying to know the full story of someone else, she’s content to work with the ambiguity of it all and find the emotional truth in that space. It’s a very interesting idea really and it’s all down to the fundamental truth that everyone has a story.

she’s a combination of the narrative instincts of the classic singer songwriter with the harmonic depth and improvisational flair of jazz. Her influences are as wide ranging as Joni Mitchell, Sarah Bareilles, John Mayer, Nicole Zuraitis, Laila Biali and Bill Evans but the music is very much her own. The songs have strong lyrics, she’s a very expressive vocalist and the arrangements are well considered, allowing each song to develop its own identity. She also takes a major step back in the studio as she is the sole producer on her first multi-tracked recording in that capacity. The guitar work is by Perry Smith and Jesse Lewis, the bass is Matt Aronoff, the drums are Ross Pederson and Matt Cossey plays organ on “Opaline”. The performances are there to support the song and not dominate it. Mixed by Aaron Nevezie and mastered by Alex DeTurk at Bunker Studios in New York the EP is a very much a product of an artist who is very much in tune with both the detail of the song and the feel of the song.

The five-track sequence (Galileo, Opaline, Holly, Grace & Henry and Philadelphia) is a collection of very different human perspectives, held together by Reinhert’s continuing curiosity about what makes people who they are. It follows on from her previous EP Normal and is part of a creative trajectory that stretches right back across two decades of songwriting and recording (including her 2021 album *Dead Reckoning* and a series of singles in 2024). Outside of her own recording work she is Professor of Songwriting at Berklee College of Music and co-founder of Songwriting for Music Educators. *Other People’s Stories* is a considered, emotionally open addition to the catalogue and one that works because of its empathy, its acute observation and the realisation that sometimes another person’s life can tell us something about our own.