Kaylee Elizabeth’s voice is soft but sure, warm but direct. She’s seasoned by time spent in Ireland studying traditional singing and years touring with sister-brother duo The Native Sibling. She first began dedicating herself to songwriting while living in Ireland in 2010. "I was initially pulled to live there after years of listening to artists like Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Glen Hansard,” Kaylee Elizabeth says. "There was a quality to the music that resonated with me deeply and I was curious to be influenced by the culture and natural aesthetics of Ireland myself.” The melodies and vocal ornaments she learned during that time still influence her to this day.
Soon after recording The Native Sibling’s last album, 2019’s Hammer is Heart, Kaylee Elizabeth began to work on songs that she knew early on were for a different project. She went about the process intentionally different than before, starting with transitioning back to playing guitar. “I thought back to when I began playing guitar my last year of high school. It was very formative for me in my artistic expression and emotional release because I hadn’t studied the instrument in any formal way. I learned to listen and follow my curiosity with the instrument instead of overthinking,” she says.
She teamed up with producer Andy D. Park (Death Cab for Cutie, Phoebe Bridgers) and also enlisted musicians with whom she had never officially collaborated to back her in the studio: Jessica Dobson (Deep Sea Diver, Beck, The Shins), Sean Lane (Pedro the Lion, Perfume Genius), Michael Porter, and Zander Hawley.
It doesn’t take knowing her past work to hear that Kaylee Elizabeth is doing something notable. From singing at Galway open mics, to writing and touring with her brother, she is now seamlessly emerging as a writer in a singular voice on Playing With Fire.