Katie Mal’s debut EP, Time Heals Most Wounds, is perfect for fans of The Beaches
Katie Mal has been writing music her entire life, but she didn’t bring her indie rock sound to the stage until two years ago.
Mal attended the Etobicoke School of the Arts before heading to Halifax for postsecondary. After graduating from Dalhousie with a bachelor of arts, Mal spent some time enjoying a snowy Whistler ski season, then traded the cold to teach English in Spain. By the end of her nine months abroad, Mal felt directionless and as far from home as ever. Her twenty-something quarter-life crisis brought her back home, to her roots in the Toronto music scene.
“Music had always been in the back of my mind,” Mal said. It was like a voice telling her, “‘you should come back to this.’”
Mal’s father immigrated to Canada from India when he was a child, living in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia before relocating to Toronto in his early 20s. He was part of a garage band, Between the Lines, selling out shows weekly at the city’s iconic venues like Lee’s Palace and Rivoli.
It’s from her dad that Mal discovered her inclination for gritty tunes paired with romantic lyricism. Mal owes much of her stylistic influence to Canadian artists, particularly Alanis Morissette; the Jagged Little Pill album is displayed prominently on her wall amidst other famous covers. On a first listen, Mal’s singles have a distinct 2000s punk vibe that could be attributed to her fondness for Avril Lavigne. She also loves The Beaches, the all-woman Toronto rock band who took home Group of the Year at this year’s Juno Awards.
It’s fitting that her emergence on the scene is bolstered by Cancon initiatives. She performed at last year’s North by Northeast music festival, where world-famous artists like The Weeknd and Daniel Caesar played early in their careers. Mal also received an artist development grant from The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR). FACTOR grants are vital to the Canadian music industry, especially for independent artists who need support to record, tour, produce and market their work. With the support of FACTOR and her experienced team, Mal has been able to navigate the release and promotion of her debut EP.
Time Heals Most Wounds is suited to restless young adults living in the gap between where they want to be and where they are. Her relatability is “almost inevitable,” she said, because “the experiences we go through in our early 20s are all so similar.”
“Can’t Say It Wasn’t Fun” is a bouncy anthem for girls looking back on their chaotic dating mistakes. The chorus, “I want your unstable / Not long lasting / Bad qualities aren’t always a bad thing,” makes the song perfect for blasting in the car with the windows down. Her favourite song from the EP, “It Just Kills Me,” puts toxic relationship woes front and centre: “Sometimes I get a sliver of hope / Pulled from the pile of the nothing / That you give me.” But “Crickets” is melancholic and earnest. She asks, “Does everything fun / Get painted over by 21 / And you become a sadder version of yourself?”
Mal thinks her next project will be less “naive” and represent the “frontal lobe development” that happens in your late 20s. Artists can’t rely on the bedroom-written lyrics and scrappy garage production that might have gotten them discovered in the 90s. Today, hard work and talent isn’t enough, as virality is the golden ticket for emerging artists. Mal said she has to post TikToks daily because social media is “quite literally the most important part of it, which is kind of shitty.”
She’s currently working on a new EP and plans to debut the first single this May. Her lyrics are more poetic, thanks to a collaborative songwriting process that’s allowed her to expand her creative horizons. Even if Mal matures as a songwriter, she’ll never abandon her angsty, Alanis-esque sound, nor the Stevie Nicks-style leather jackets that she bought with her teaching money in Spain. After all, the Toronto indie rocker scene will forever be imprinted in Mal’s musical DNA.