The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.
Oakland-based pianist and singer-songwriter Caitlin Cobb-Vialet describes their indie-pop music as “deeply personal.” The song “Disco Ball” is exemplary of this drive to hold themself to being unsparingly honest in their music, expressing impassioned and sometimes painful emotions through meandering melodies and raw vocals.
The song came to be on abandoned pianos in empty music rehearsal rooms at NYU where Cobb-Vialet was a student. They describe it as a “heartbreak and a love song,” that follows the emotional journey of experiencing love, and that contemplates the nonlinear ways feelings change with self-reflection throughout and after a relationship.
“I just really want people to also feel what I'm feeling, the catharsis and the complications and nuances of love and vulnerability," Cobb-Vialet said. "I want other people to relate and feel like that part of them that wants more from the people in their life. I want them to feel validated in that."
A pianist from an early age, Cobb-Vialet says their informal training led to a unique playing style that emphasizes counterintuitive and improvised chords. They are also an actor, and plan to integrate their theater and composing skills into their own musical with music similar to the style of music on their album, “Endless Void."
“I want everyone to write music. I think it's like therapy,” said Cobb-Vialet.
Caitlin Cobb-Vialet will be performing at Cornerstone Berkeley on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.