Premiere: Katmaz, ‘Every Time I’m Away’

Matt Wallock on March 17th, 2022

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In the summer of 2020, Matt Kaz was ready for a change. The Buffalo-born, Brooklyn-bred singer-songwriter and producer, who releases music under the moniker Katmaz, set his sights on Los Angeles and embarked on a three-month cross-country road trip, recording his debut album, “Tell Me How Great You Are,” on the way. Today he shares the album’s lead single, “Every Time I’m Away,” a driving indie-rock number that evokes “Seasons (Waiting on You)”-era Future Islands, tells a tale of star-crossed lovers and samples frogs (yes, you read that correctly).

“A friend of mine and I were renting a place in the swamps, just outside of Jacksonville, Fla.,” Kaz says. “One night we heard these strange noises. We swore they were aliens, so I pulled out a field recorder. You can hear a dog howling at the noise in the beginning of the song. Later, we discovered that the sounds were actually the songs of hundreds of chirping frogs. I took the recording, slowed it down and put them to a vocoder. The working title was ‘Frogs’ for the longest time. The song is about leaving a familiar place, and the desire to bring the person you love with you on the journey, even though you know it’s not possible.”

Kaz produced and mixed the song, which is officially out Friday, with his production partner Jason Podkulski, aka Savings, then tapped Andy “Hippy” Baldwin to master it. “Every Time I’m Away” follows Katmaz’s previous single “Promises,” plus a handful of other singles and a pair of EPs released since 2016. Beyond prepping his debut album, Kaz is co-running a music studio with Podkulski (the duo call themselves and the studio No New Lovers) and stay busy on TikTok. “Tell Me How Great You Are” is due in September.

||| Stream: “Every Time I’m Away”