Victoria Pop Artist Kat Selah Releases New Single "Motivation"

Kat Selah releases "Motivation," out now, a pop track built around a feisty, driving bassline that pairs sharp lyrical honesty with a defiant edge, and a title that carries a bitter double meaning once the story behind it comes into focus.

The song came together in 20 minutes in Selah's small home studio, unusually fast for an artist who typically starts writing on guitar. This time she reached for her MIDI keyboard instead, laying down a feisty bassline she had already worked out in her head before putting the past three months onto paper, or in this case, into the notes app on her phone, where hundreds of her lyrics already live waiting for the right moment.

Those three months were a turbulent stretch for Selah, a manic period marked by heavy drinking, late nights, and a chaotic circle of people she would normally have kept her distance from. Looking back, she is candid about how she was treated during that time and equally candid about her own role in it, taking full responsibility for staying in situations she knew, even then, were not good for her.

The title itself comes straight from that world. "Motivation" is Selah's word for the bottle, the only thing driving the alcoholic, narcissistic and unapologetic behaviour she found herself surrounded by, a person who never apologized or owned up to anything and instead sought out people willing to worship them. Selah had one specific person in mind while writing it, but listening back now, she hears a whole cast of similarly difficult people she encountered during that stretch, the song widening from a single portrait into something closer to a pattern.

Writing "Motivation" gave her some distance from that period, and what she found on the other side of it surprised her. Alongside the difficult people who shaped the song, she recognized a sadder, more helpless version of herself in the lyrics, and says it sometimes takes hitting a genuine low point before you can see what was really going on inside yourself. She describes coming out of the experience stronger, crediting a new course of medication, a fresh ADHD diagnosis and therapy with helping her finally understand what had been happening beneath the surface.

The song sits in sharp contrast to "Fake A Smile," which Selah wrote immediately afterward and released as her most recent single. Heard side by side, the two tracks trace a clear emotional arc, from the anger of "Motivation," written just as she could finally see light at the end of the tunnel but was still furious about what she had gone through, to the different headspace that followed once she had worked through it, a shift she says is obvious once you know what to listen for.

Based in Victoria, BC, Selah is an independent singer, songwriter, and recording artist whose emotive vocals sit over electronic, pop and dance leaning production, built around themes of vulnerability, emotional resilience, and personal reflection. She stepped onto the scene with her 2016 debut single, "Eyes Wide Open," and has since built a dynamic discography including "Summertime," "Trust Issues," "Five Day Bender," "Breathing" and "We Both Know," alongside collaborations such as a feature on Cold Fame's single "Losing Light." Recent releases "Bleeding Hearts," "Avalon" and "Fake A Smile" continue to sharpen her sound.