Kaia Kater Takes Aim At Patriarchy On New Single ‘The Witch’ Featuring Aoife O’Donovan

Singer-songwriter Kaia Kater shared a new single, “The Witch,” featuring Aoife O’Donovan. The track is set for Kater’s first album in six years, Strange Medicine, due out on May 17 via Free Dirt Records.

Strange Medicine follows Kater’s 2018 album, Grenades. Along with O’Donovan, the new record also sees guest turns from Kater’s fellow Montreal native Allison Russell fittingly on the single “In Montreal” and the legendary Taj Mahal on “Fédon.” Kaia co-produced Strange Medicine with Joe Grass (Elisapie, The Barr Brothers).

The latest Strange Medicine single “The Witch” is an “opening salvo from an album that celebrates the power of women and oppressed people throughout history as they rise up and turn the poison of centuries of oppression into a strange kind of medicine,” as per a press release.

Kater specifically takes aim at the patriarchy on the new tune. The singer-songwriter detailed the song:

“I specifically wanted to write about the way men historically have branded women as temptresses, harlots, sirens and shrews, and then sought to reflect this visually – the letter A for adulteress, the burning of flesh to symbolize evil. The first woman labeled a witch in Salem was a Black woman by the name of Tituba. Usually these women died nameless and scorned. In my narrative, the woman who is branded a witch and burned at the stake survives her pilgrim’s punishment, and now seeks her revenge on those who sought to destroy her.”

In a recent No Depression feature, Aoife O’Donovan commented on Kater’s skill as a singer, player and storyteller.

“I love her voice. The way she plays, and how she tells a story. [Her music feels] wholly unique, yet with deep and scrambling roots, spreading in many directions.”

Listen to Kaia Kater’s “The Witch” featuring Aoife O’Donovan below: