#004: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - What's Between Us

Can you hold my hand?
Trust that we can be

The one time I saw Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith live, it was in a planetarium. This was entirely fitting, as she makes music for star gazing, for looking up and out, for dreaming. It was an immersive, transportive audio visual experience, that both enriched and damaged my subsequent perspective on live music. Why can't it all be this good?

In 2025, she's only gotten better. Smith's music has always drawn from the fringes of electronica, the twisted, the cut, the looped and broken, and tenderly formed those thorny edges into something approachable. I can never identify where these sounds are coming from, what is making them, and that seems to only intensify the emotive effect, something so often achingly beautiful coming from such an odd place. On What's Between Us, the second single from her forthcoming album Gush, Smith takes that tenderness, an overwhelming melody, then adds something entirely new for her. It's such spit take of a moment that I won't spoil it if you've yet to listen.

The introduction in place, it is gradually but completely consumed by keys, pads and a cut up, tripping vocal loop. It's completely absorbing, inviting you in quickly and assuredly. Finally, after nearly a minute and a half, Smith's celestial vocals enter the mix, offering her hand, her commitment, a generous declaration that you have to pay close attention to discern. You're drawn in, held close, a warm embrace from a new love. Piece by piece, the stars disappear from the night sky, the music falls away, until we are left with just that vocal loop. In the end, it's just you and whoever took your hand.

Stream What's Between Us wherever you listen to music here.