Kitty Craft - Catskills (2000)

Kitty Craft is the alias of Pamela Valfer, who makes warm, sample-heavy indie pop songs. First surfacing with a few lo-fi, guitar-based releases, she switched to a lush, trip-hop-like sound with 1998's Beats and Breaks from the Flower Patch. After the more advanced 2000 follow-up Catskills and a further EP, Kitty Craft appeared to go dormant, but her work was rediscovered decades later, and the compilation Mew (1996-2004) appeared in 2022.

Debuting in 1995 with a self-titled cassette on the legendary Australian label Toytown, the tape and the same year's It's Stupid EP were low-tech affairs recorded to four-track. With 1997's I Got Rulez, Valfer began expanding her sound, recording to eight-track and employing keyboards and samplers. Her fascination with loops and samples culminated with the 1998 Kindercore full-length Beats and Breaks from the Flower Patch. Catskills followed on March Records in 2000, and Hello Kitty Craft EP was released by Sonic Syrup in 2004.

By 2020, Beats and Breaks and Catskills were issued digitally, and Lost Tapes, a collection of previously unreleased material, appeared. Beats and Breaks gradually attracted new listeners and came to be regarded as a lost gem. Mew (1996-2004) compiled tracks from most of Kitty Craft's releases, bringing the majority of the songs to vinyl for the first time. ~ Jason Ankeny & Paul Simpson