Since her music career got going in 2017, the Georgia-born and LA-based actress/songwriter Katelyn Tarver has rarely slowed down, using the momentum from her first two EPs to carry her through to late 2021’s debut Subject to Change, which featured a whole album’s worth of unrelated singles released as a prelude. What did she spend last year doing? Laying the groundwork for the follow-up, of course. “What Makes a Life Good?” was released just last month, and hot on its heels comes “Starting to Scare Me.”
Released to coincide with the announcement that she’s signed to Nettwerk Music Group, her latest offering is a fine example of hook-heavy indie pop with electronic flourishes, its lyrics probing hypotheticals concerning what could happen if a person gave in to their less savory urges. It turns out that it’s autobiographical: “This song is about indulging in self-destructive behavior,” Tarver explains, “because it’s easier than doing the work of looking underneath it to try and figure out what’s causing it in the first place. I’ve spent a lot of time running from my darker impulses, pushing them down, pretending they're not there...this song is about shining a spotlight on them and kind of liking the feeling even though it...well, uh, scares me.”
The album’s not out until next year, but in the meantime, it won’t be a surprise if Tarver has more to come before 2023 is over. It’s kind of what she does.
