KAY
PROUDLOVE
BIOGRAPHY
Emotional and witty, Kay is a Wollongong raised indie-folk singer-songwriter with a remarkably agile, engaging, honest, soul-bearing voice and a wry, dry-ice sense of humour. With a live performance style that is much like being invited into her lounge room, her songs are truly stories set to melody, by turns relatable, humorous and heartbreaking. Creating an intimacy between audience and performer through vulnerability, Kay's live show is likely to leave you wondering whether all of her songs are about you.
The co-ordination that never showed up for Kay on any sort of sporting field has made itself known in a marriage of acoustic guitar, voice and lyrics that are practiced in the art of observation. From the self-love anthem Bikini Body to the heartfelt story of missed connections in All In The Timing and the pop cultured parody of May The Fourth, Kay's songs highlight the commonalities between human beings, pulling at them like heartstrings. This skill has been refined over the last 20 years while performing her work around Australia, including appearances at Woodford Folk Festival, The National Folk Festival, Illawarra Folk Festival, Nannup Music Festival as well as every bar in Greater Sydney that local emerging artists cut their teeth on. Never shying away from an audience of strangers, Kay befriends quickly and has opened shows for the likes of Tim Freedman, Katie Noonan, William Crighton, 19-Twenty, Caiti Baker, Shaun Kirk, Hollie Col, The Northern Folk and Boat Keeper.
Having already released two EPs and a live album, 2020 saw Kay release the relatable and wordy single Maybe I'm Not a Grown Up, which documents torturous trips to the supermarket, laundry confusion and underlying social anxiety. "I felt that now was as good a time as any to release it into the world, having lived the past couple months of my adult life feeling more like a child than ever," she says of her time in iso, "eat, sleep, cry, buy a plant, repeat." - a mantra that unexpectedly carried over to 2021. Taking the opportunity to work on new things while the world was upside down, Kay used 2020 to compose the musical works for See You Later Mum, a black comedy stage show written by Christine Firkin, which Kay performed in at Adelaide Fringe Festival in March 2021 and will be taking to Edinburgh Festival in 2022. The show received a four star review from Stage Whispers who commented that "Proudlove’s beautiful songs are carried on a guitar and a voice – sometimes the two voices, harmonising heartfelt lyrics with clever rhymes."
Currently in development with Merrigong Theatre Company, Kay’s next project Dear Diary sees her take entries from her teenage journals and set them to music, a live production that will showcase the quirkiness of Kay’s creative process, combining her love of music and theatre once again when it takes the stage in 2022.