Katie Malco - Live at The Moroccan Lounge (February 2023)

Katie Malcomson (Katie Malco) at The Moroccan Lounge (Los Angeles, CA) - February 19, 2023

Katie Malcomson, singer-songwriter hailing from the Midlands of the UK, graciously ended her month-long and first US tour in the dark and intimate Moroccan Lounge of Downtown Los Angeles. Settling in quite nicely and naturally to the Angeleno stage, Malco told countless stories and through songs and interludes to a quiet and focused crowd.

Malco played quite a few tracks from her full-length ‘Failures’ (2020) (regarded for its “soul-baring songwriting and gut-punch guitars” and “vulnerable melancholy”), immediately reminding the crowd of the record’s unique ability to evoke the pain, heartache, and longing of the life changes (deaths, relationships, identity) of your twenties.    

Completely capturing everyone’s attention with a guitar in tow, Katie beckoned the crowd to feel her pain through her lyrical mastery and command of the telecaster. Kicking off the show with eyes-closed, Malco called out,

“We are chasing laughter, paced in all of the fractures, 

And I know I can't match up to her

So, I'll be this for you

If you want me to

And I'll love you endlessly

If you can pretend to love me.” 

A sucker-punch to the gut, Malco tells her story of strife and brokenness sharply and eloquently. She follows Fractures with tales of ordinary, yet shockingly profound loneliness, croaking she’s “surrounded by good people but always alone”; in a following song, embracing a connected, but distinct sense of isolation steeped in heartbreak she states “I forgot how you sound when you’re sleeping”. 

Katie Malco’s stunning, poignant lyrics, vocals, and instrumentation distinguish her as an incredibly exciting artist to follow for years to come. Upon closing the set, I couldn’t help but think of  Malco’s presence, sound, and performance as akin to a British beach; her lyrics and instrumentation like cold sand, meticulously gritty and yet impossibly soft after the violent, chilling crash of ocean waves.

Standout Tracks: September (2020), Let’s Go To War (2020), Peckham (2020)