COMING SOON- Recovery
The debut EP from Kathryn Colina, Recovery is a work of both raw vulnerability and exhilarating courage. After harboring lifelong ambitions of making music—but feeling daunted by the risk in pursuing that dream—the Nashville-based singer/songwriter suffered a major car accident in January 2017, an incident that left her wheelchair-bound and addicted to opioids. As she regained her ability to walk, Colina wholeheartedly devoted herself to the making of Recovery: a finespun and luminous selection of songs that instantly reveal her soulful complexity and extraordinary depth.
Produced by Kevin Leach (aka Sonic Pilot, a producer known for his work with The Lumineers and on the ABC series Nashville), Recovery unfolds with a fresh yet timeless sound centered on Colina’s warm vocals, indelible melodies, and sharply poetic lyrics. And while the EP examines such intense matters as the death of a close friend and the despair of depression, each track radiates an undeniable energy that reflects the pure joy Colina found in its creation.
“Once I immersed myself in music, I noticed that my PTSD began washing away and my brain finally started to heal,” Colina says. “I truly believe that music was my pathway to recovery, and without it I would’ve been stuck in an endless cycle of doubt and fear.”
Mixed and mastered by engineer Nathan Dantzler (Niall Horan, Hey Violet), Recovery bears a boldly eclectic sonic palette, encompassing everything from the epically shimmering pop of “Stars” to the jazzy reverie of “Space Between” (a beautifully bittersweet track featuring Rahsaan Barber, a saxophonist who’s played with legendary artists like The Temptations). On “Love Affair,” Colina presents a lovingly rendered portrait of a friend’s unraveling, magnifying the song’s heavy-hearted mood with a lush string arrangement from Wanda Vick (a studio musician who’s worked with Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift). And on “Take Care”—one of the EP’s most poignant moments— delicate piano work and cascading guitar lines meet with lyrics confessing to the confusion following Colina’s accident. “It’s meant to be a message from my happy self to my sad self in the times when I’m feeling lost—a reminder that this too shall pass,” she points out.
Throughout Recovery, Colina shows the graceful musicality she’s cultivated since writing her first song at age six. Born in Massachusetts and raised partly in Philadelphia, she took up guitar in sixth grade and adopted a self-taught fingerpicking style inspired by artists like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. While attending the Lawrenceville school, a boarding school in New Jersey, she greatly expanded her musical knowledge, at one point joining in an independent study program focused on songwriting. “Boarding school is where I blossomed into writing,” Colina says. “There were always people to sing with and play with, and I ended up writing over 100 songs during that time.”
Despite her deep affinity for music, Colina decided to study creative writing and marketing upon enrolling at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “My family wanted me to get a degree in case music wasn’t my path, and I thought creative writing could be a way to sneak in something I could apply to my songwriting,” she says. After graduating from Vanderbilt (where she took songwriting classes at the Blair School of Music), Colina began studying at an audio engineering school on Music Row with intentions of becoming a producer.
Just months graduating from Vanderbilt Universtiy, however, Colina’s trajectory was drastically upended by her car accident. Although her initial symptoms mainly consisted of neck and shoulder pain, that pain gradually worsened and spread, with Colina eventually developing leg tremors—a problem so severe, she soon needed to use a wheelchair. After meeting with countless doctors and undergoing a multitude of tests that turned out inconclusive, Colina felt increasingly hopeless about the possibility of recovering. Then, in early 2018, she had a life-changing breakthrough upon visiting a holistic doctor who immediately identified the source of her tremors (a misaligned disk in the middle of her back), then quickly returned the disk to its normal position. “That day when I got home, my mom heard a sound from upstairs and thought I was screaming, but really I was singing,” Colina recalls. “She ran to the staircase and broke down crying, because she hadn’t heard me sing in over a year.”
Over the coming months, Colina began walking again and saw her condition profoundly transform. Still, a battle with PTSD continued to fill her days with anxiety and fear. “I kept doubting my progress and thinking it was all going to happen again,” she says. “Finally I said to myself, ‘I don’t know if this is going to help, but I think I just need to do what I love and get back to making music.’”
Soon after that realization, Colina contacted a former classmate from engineering school and played him several of the 200-plus songs she’d written over the years, in hopes of enlisting him as a producer. Struck by the subtle power of Colina’s songwriting, the classmate connected her with Leach, who ultimately helped bring entirely new tones and textures to her music. “Going into this whole process, I figured it would mostly just involve tracking me and my guitar, and maybe we’d add a few harmonies,” Colina says. “The experience of working with Kevin exceeded my expectations tenfold, and added so much beautiful color that I never could have anticipated.” But even as Recovery pushes into unpredictable sonic terrain, the EP never distracts from the nuanced storytelling at the heart of Colina’s songwriting. “My favorite thing is to hint at an idea or an image so that the listener can fill in the rest on their own,” she says. “Instead of giving them lyrics that are completely on the nose, I love to let them figure out the meaning for themselves.”
As she gears up to share Recovery with the world, Colina hopes that the strength and solace she discovered in making the EP might transfer onto her listeners—especially those who’ve endured a similar struggle. “During that time when nobody could figure out what was causing my leg tremors, I had a lot of doctors tell me it was all in my head,” says Colina. “Since then I’ve talked to so many people who’ve dealt with health issues where no one can find a cure, and I hope these songs can be some kind of light for them. I want to send the message that you can get through it as long as you lean into your passion or lean into hope, and just keep believing in yourself no matter what.”
Out now on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon, Google Play, and more!
