Last Friday, Bonaventure’s official radio station—88.3 FM WSBU’s The Buzz—was filled with the soulful, live sounds of Catalina Richsen, a Connecticut-based, indie singer. And she’s a contender for 2017 Spring Weekend performer, too.
Over the duration of her visit to campus, Richsen acquainted herself with the station (complementing its unique aesthetic), was welcomed by the station’s student board of directors and participated in an hour-long radio show.
The show was split in half: first, with Station Manager Natalie Kucko leading a 30-minute question-and-answer session, then a live performance by Richsen.
Richsen sang a concoction of cover songs and original tunes off her album In The Midst Of A War. Among the ranks of covers was a slowed-down, shaky version of Beyonce’s “Drunk in Love.” Expanding on the song’s already-existing chords, Richsen breathed sultriness and soulfulness into the tune, stripping away its forceful, advancing sound.
Richsen’s original works, though, sat next to Beyonce’s well-known track, just as impactful and jam session-ready.
Her unique sound isn’t just by chance, though. Richsen explained her vocal influences are a culmination of her childhood exposures, both to popular 90s hits of the time and her parent’s artists of choice.
“I listened to a lot of Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Christina, Britney, NSYNC,” she said. “There was this kind of unspoken agreement that if I put my Backstreet Boys cassette in, she would put her Bee Gees cassette in, then Christina and then Barry White. You know, back and forth kind of thing.”
The morphing of those influences gave way to her current indie sound—one Kucko, a senior journalism and mass communication major, said is “very much the Bonaventure sound.”
“I feel like my sound is rooted in a more soulful place,” Richsen said. “And I think it comes from what [my parents] brought to the table.”
While Richsen began singing along to popular hits when she was only five years old, she added that her songwriting career began around age 12.
Admittedly, Richsen said, her content’s changed since. At the time, she added, her work was mostly focused on boys. It’s grown since, though.
“It was probably about me and a boy—typical 12-year-old things,” she said. “It’s definitely progressed; there’s only one song that I’ve kept—that I wrote when I was 13—and it’s actually on the album…I’m still writing about me and boys and romance and that kind of stuff, but it’s not as childish. I think I have a better way with words.”
Richsen added she attributes that “better way with words” to her use of poetry and observance of other artists. And that eloquence with words bleeds through.
On her track “Smoky Mountains,” she sings, “You had me at sticks and stones/ But, now, you lost me to the smoky mountains.” While some might equate this to a love song, Richsen explained that it’s actually about a trip she took to Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, where she—for the first time ever—felt singing might just be her calling.
“Smoky Mountains is actually a song about…how they made me feel two years ago when I went there,” she said. “I’d been trying to break out in the New York City music scene, because I’m only a train ride away and it hadn’t been working out too much. I made this leap of faith to go down to this singer-songwriter festival in Gatlinburg and it was life changing…they received me so nicely.”
Although most of her listeners haven’t had this same experience, Richsen said she focuses on establishing relatability in her work—which Kucko said could give way to a popular Spring Weekend performance.
For those interested in hearing Richsen’s album, it’s both on Spotify and her official website www.catalinamusic.net. Additionally, Kucko said she’d like to get student feedback on Richsen as a contender for the official 2017 Spring Weekend performer. She added that students can feel free to email her at kuckonf13@bonaventure.edu.
mcgurllt14@bonaventure.edu
